Taking time out of training to undertake a fellowship with the Health Services Research Centre (HSRC), now Centre for Research and Improvement (CR&I) has been an eye-opening and fulfilling experience. The fellowship tenure is for a minimum of 12 months, with opportunities to progress onto higher degrees. Depending on vacancies available, fellows are allocated to national projects such as PQIP, NELA, the QI Working Group, SNAPs, NAPs, and many more.

What have we learned during this fellowship?

As fellows, we each took on the role of leading a project within our team and were able to build on teamworking, communication and time-management skills. We worked with national and international experts from various fields and found ourselves in an independent but supportive learning environment. There were ample opportunities to plan project timelines, organise and lead meetings, and we have both presented at national conferences.

Each project managed by the HSRC/CR&I is unique, and therefore your experience of fellowships will be individualised. Some fellowships are focused on quantitative analysis of large datasets using coding programs such as ‘R’, others on qualitative analysis and exploration of patient experience. Overall, fellows get first-hand experience of the significance of perioperative medicine research for patient care. In addition, through the Fellows Development Programme, we also received teaching on research methodology from experts on topics such as quantitative and qualitative research, statistics, and publication skills.

No prior research experience is required to apply for the fellowships, although a keen learning approach and enthusiasm will help at interview.

Are there career benefits?

The skills and experience gained are transferrable to our future career as clinicians. Being equipped with these abilities allows us to contribute to national research projects and quality improvement work locally. This fellowship is an invaluable addition to your CV, and the skills developed may be your unique selling point when applying for jobs in the future.

In addition to having dedicated research time, fellows continue with clinical work, and we have found the balance between clinical and academic work rewarding – in many ways, the best of both worlds.

Is the fellowship for me?

The fellowship receives overwhelmingly positive feedback from previous fellows. Although the fellowships can be challenging at times, we have both certainly found them rewarding, enjoyable and absolutely the right choice for us. We hope we can inspire more anaesthetists to join our family and would encourage anyone with an interest in research to apply for future fellowships.