From the South West to the North East: a Clinical Research Fellows journey to the PSRC, by Chris Lovegrove

From the South West to the North East: a Clinical Research Fellow's journey to NIHR Newcastle PSRC, by Chris Lovegrove

Hello, and welcome to my first blog post for the NIHR Newcastle PSRC. My name is Chris Lovegrove, and I am delighted to join the NIHR Newcastle PSRC in June this year as a Clinical Research Fellow in Patient Safety. In this post, I will share a little about myself, my career, and my research.

Since becoming an occupational therapist in 2007, I've had the privilege of working in various specialities, from supporting vulnerably-housed young people to community mental health rehabilitation and trauma and orthopaedics. These roles have taken me across different settings, including the third sector and NHS. During a rotation at Frimley Park Hospital, I discovered my passion for neurology and decided to specialise in this area. In 2011, I took up a post at the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital, where I worked in stroke, acute neuromedical, and inpatient neurorehabilitation services.

I have supported clinical service delivery in a range of leadership roles, supporting clinicians at various stages of their careers. A particularly foundational leadership experience for me was helping to lead a coastal community rehabilitation team during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Providing leadership during a once-in-a-lifetime global health crisis in a setting that I was utterly fresh to certainly presented challenges, but it was an overall enjoyable (albeit stressful) experience that strengthened my skills.

In 2013, I encountered a clinical challenge that led to the start of my clinical academic career. I was working with increasing numbers of people with Parkinson’s who experienced profound anxiety to the extent that it amplified their other Parkinson’s symptoms and stopped them from living their lives the way that they wanted to. After spending some time looking into this problem, it became apparent that there wasn’t an effective treatment for people with Parkinson’s with anxiety. My journey to address this problem had begun! I was awarded a place on an NIHR-funded Masters in Clinical Research degree course at the University of Plymouth. This was the start of my early research career and my first steps as a clinical academic. I was awarded an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship (now the Doctoral Clinical and Academic Fellowship, or DCAF) in 2021 to co-produce and feasibility-test a new occupation-based complex intervention to help people with Parkinson’s live well with anxiety. I am now at the end of my fellowship and analysing our final dataset. I’m excited to report our findings in the future and to continue this work as part of the Newcastle PSRC. I am passionate about developing future clinical academic leaders, and I look forward to sharing what I have learned with the next generation as part of the ACD theme.

I eagerly anticipate meeting, working, and collaborating with you to improve patient safety and public health for all, regardless of background. Finally, I have relocated to Newcastle upon Tyne from Devon in the Southwest of England. If you see me looking lost, I probably am! So please feel free to say hello. It would be great to meet you.