This week we have a the first part of a super guest blog from one of our students, Shawn Soh.   Shawn highlights his experiences attending ECRF Education Programme courses in both an online and face2face capacity.

The review of curriculum for teaching and learning has always been done within organisations for its objectives, relevance, and the need to keep abreast with best current practices. Depending on the agenda, decolonising the curriculum is one perspective which may be brought alongside the review.

The idea of decolonisation of higher education started two decades ago as a movement to ensure that the knowledge and practices of indigenous people were represented in the higher education curricula of post-colonial countries. Recently, the concept of a decolonised curriculum has been raised amongst educational institutions to emphasise an inclusive curriculum that considers the broader diversity of all learners. Decolonisation of the curriculum challenges our assumptions of knowledge and the ways of teaching and learning. Through an approach of embracing the diversity of knowledge, the different epistemology towards learning, and the provision of learning resources, the student may embark on a rewarding self-discovery journey of exploring and defining success by themselves in their own ways. In this context, I will discuss decolonising the classroom through my personal experience with the different delivery modes of training courses offered by Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility (ECRF) for my flourishment of academic learning.

I still vividly remember my first training course held at the ECRF, Western General Hospital (WGH) on 29^th May 2019. The course was “Planning and conducting a systematic review: From quality appraisal to publication (Part 2)”. The training came timely for me as I was a first-year PhD candidate and needed to inaugurate my PhD journey with a systematic review. When I first heard about the course I rushed excitedly to sign up. You may wonder why I had only signed up for Part 2. Well, as a student, I had to be price-conscious and needed to be selective on the courses to attend..

The course was well-attended with about twenty participants. I remembered feeling slightly out of place, given that I was only attending the second part of the course. The group of students appeared to know each other, perhaps from the early interactions during the first part of the course. However, the momentarily discomfort dissipated when I was warmly received by the staff and the course tutors. I was also glad to meet three of my PhD classmates.

The course was well-planned and well-conducted. The course tutors took no assumption of the current knowledge of the students. They paced the teaching according to the feedback received from the students. The session catered well to the different levels of students’ knowledge. Many students were keen to learn about the planning and to conduct the systematic review, with a view of an eventual publication. The course tutors were supportive and attempted to clarify any doubts that the students may have. Students also had the opportunity to give their opinions on various subjects. There was no sense of power imbalance between the tutors and students. Each concern raised by the students was respectfully answered. There was no sense that one needed to have the lingua franca to articulate their concerns. I felt that the message brought across the classroom was that “we endeavour to help you succeed”.

The course was useful for those who were doing systematic review through a form of the Cochrane Review. Unfortunately, I later discovered that I had to use the COSMIN (COnsensus-based Standards for the selection of health Measurement Instruments) method for my systematic review. Nevertheless, I found the course well delivered and met its course’s aims and objectives.

Decolonising learning helps students to recognise, understand, and challenge the ways in which our world is shaped by colonialism. It also prompts us to examine our professional practices. Through my learning in the physical-based space interaction, I was able to witness the interactions between course tutors and students. Learning through the physical space allowed diverse learners (their voices, background, gender, different level of knowledge, etc.) to come together and transform the learning practice. I greatly appreciated the various elements of respect, professionalism and encouragement of participation, inclusion and emancipation illuminated in the course.

Some pros of physical space

• Physical interaction between course tutors and students
• Ability to pace the session accordingly based on verbal and non-verbal cues
• Ease and accessibility of hand-hold guidance offered by course tutors

Some cons of physical space

• Travelling time
• Higher cost
• Need for logistic planning, e.g. bring a laptop

Continuing our exciting Webinar Series with Lee Murphy who is Head of the Genetics Core at the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facilities. This week Lee tells us about Providing a Genomics Platform for Covid Research, elaborating on the sample processing data produced for the ISARIC study, and also the GenOMICC study led by Prof Kenny Bailey. He explains how he and his team were in the fortunate position to be able to turn their normal lab space into an environment ready to undertake Covid research in 3 weeks.

This week we have a fantastic guest blog from Ruaridh Buchan, Scottish Pharmacy Clinical Leadership Fellow at NHS Lothian.  Ruaridh highlights his experience as a first time research participant in the SIREN study and what it feels like to be on the other side of the table.

Over the past few months, COVID-19 has impacted my personal and work life significantly.  Both my wife and I had COVID-19, as did close family members.  Thankfully all our symptoms were mild, and we recovered quickly, but I am all too aware of the devastating effects that the virus can have on our patients.

Research has a key role to play in the fight against COVID-19 by helping to develop new tests, treatments, and vaccines to prevent and manage the spread of the virus. I have been involved in supporting delivery of the numerous COVID-19 drug and vaccine studies that have been delivered in NHS Lothian and recently had my first experience of being a research participant when I enrolled in the Siren study at the Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility.  Despite being in familiar surroundings, it felt strange going into the CRF. I work as a clinical trial pharmacist, so my job is usually supporting delivery of clinical trials in the CRF opposed to being a research participant.

The purpose of the Siren study is to understand whether prior infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 protects against future infection with the same virus.  It is thought that antibodies which are produced by the body when someone is infected with COVID-19, remain in the body and help to protect against future infection.

I decided to enrol in the Siren study because I wanted to do my part to help us understand more about COVID-19 and how to manage it.  I was interested to learn if having been previously infected with COVID-19 meant I developed antibodies that might give some protection against the virus.  In my job, I usually don’t meet the patients that take part in the clinical trials that I help deliver, so I was interested to understand more about what it means to be take part in a clinical trial as a participant.

From the outset, I was struck by the knowledge and professionalism of all the research nurses.  I had an initial phone call, where everything was explained fully and carefully.  I would be asked to complete an online enrolment and consent questionnaire, a nose and throat swab every 2 weeks to look for the presence of COVID-19, a blood test every 4 weeks to test for antibodies and a short follow up questionnaire every 2 weeks. The first visit would be face to face, and after that I could swab myself and ask a kind nurse colleague to take my blood.  After reading the participant information leaflet, I agreed to take part, so my first face to face visit was booked.

It was nice to see a familiar face when I came to the CRF for my first visit as had worked with the research nurse on several clinical trials previously.  After completing the online enrolment and consent questionnaire and giving a blood sample, came the bit I was dreading – the throat and nose swab.  Anyone who has done this will know that the process invariably results in an unflattering combination of gagging and sneezing, and this time was no different.  I was reassured to hear that this gets easier with practice. On balance, I think that putting up with the nasal and throat swab is a small price to pay if it helps to discover more about how we manage COVID-19.

While I walked back to the car, I read the schedule of assessments that was given to me to remind me when swabs and bloods would be required.   I thought it looked like a lot of things to remember, but I know that Siren is straightforward compared to some of the more complicated drug studies that we support in Lothian.

Being a research participant myself, helped to remind me of the time and effort that research participants put in to supporting research.  As someone who works in research, but has never participated in research, enrolling in the Siren study has taught me a lot and reminded me of the important contribution that research participants make to scientific research every day.

We would like to thank all of the Research Participants who dedicate their time to helping science!

The International Severe Acute Respiratory and emerging Infection Consortium’s (ISARIC) purpose is to prevent illness and deaths from infectious disease outbreaks. They are a global federation of clinical research networks, providing a proficient, coordinated, and agile research response to outbreak-prone infectious diseases. Within this network is ISARIC 4C, the Coronavirus Clinical Characterisation Consortium. They are a UK-wide consortium of doctors and scientists committed to answering urgent questions about COVID-19 quickly, openly, and for the benefit of all.

Dr Annemarie Docherty is part of this consortium.  In her webinar – The ISARIC Study – she gives us some insights into some of the outputs which have been delivered due to the  samples and data collected since the first cases were reported in the UK. And also how these outputs provide a foundation for other studies, such as clinical trials of new treatments, to help better understand the best way to use interventions.

This week, as part of Co-production Week, Carol and I were asked to contribute to the Scottish Co-production Network‘s series of activities. We have written a blog about ‘Trying to be more Co-productive‘ so that we can reflect on how the combination of everyone’s strengths ensure that we can work together to achieve positive change. This means communities truly playing a part in how decisions are made – where things happen with people, instead of to them.

Finally I can say that the recording of our first joint Edinburgh Clinical Research Facility and Accord webinar is available to view! Hurrah! The audio captioning for ‘The Accord Office and how we managed our response to Covid‘ was a bit trickier than anticipated and at one stage it tried to convince me that  the Accord team was returning to the office to ‘inhale poison’!!! Happy to report that this has not been the case and hopefully we’ll have a bit more luck with editing the next one,

Thanks again to Heather Charles and Paul Dearie for delivering this session, it’s always hard when you’re first to kick things off but you were absolute rockstars and did a fantastic job.

Now I’ll just have a think about what I can rope you both into next…

Earlier this week we published a blog post on the Open.Ed blog about our thoughts on engaging with Open Educational Resources (OERs).

Rainbows all round gives a small insight into how we decided to focus on the creation of OERs and the benefits these will bring to our clinical research community.

Exciting news! Launching on 1st October will be our latest webinar series – Research during a Pandemic!

Working with our friends in ACCORD, we will hear from a range of speakers about: how best to manage your research; current guidelines and legislation; what we have learned so far; and thoughts for the future.

The first session will be delivered by Heather Charles and Paul Dearie on 1^st Oct at 2pm. You can register your interest at: education@edinburghcrf.ed.ac.uk

If you have any suggestions to the topics covered during this series don’t hesitate in dropping us a line, or if you would like to contribute a session we would be delighted to hear from you!

And so it begins! What stated off as a tiny idea, coming from a place of fear, all those months ago has finally started to grow. Through careful nurturing, a sprinkling a team work and with lots of open minds we have brought our clinical research education programme back to life. The relief that we all feel is immense and I hope that this is shared within our research community as all along we have only had you in mind. Our commitment to support you and your research in whatever way we can has always been at the forefront of our minds and the driving force in keeping us motivated and sane.

Our sense of achievement swells as the dates in our calendar fill up with new sessions for you like:

• A Practical Guide to Patient and Public Involvement – 18th September
• Doing Patient and Public Involvement Virtually – 5th October
• GCP for Labs – 9th October
• Research, GDPR and Confidentiality – 14th October
• PPI in Clinical Trials – Design, Recruitment & Retention – 22nd October