Changing places in the name of COVID-19 research | Latest news

The task was daunting, but a research nurse who volunteered to join the COVID-19 research frontline has nothing but praise for the way clinical research nurses have worked as a team over the last three months.

With a background in women’s health research, Cindy Wilson is very familiar with clinical research in Family Health at NUH. But when NUH joined the national and international search for effective treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, Cindy found herself in a very different research environment.

“I initially felt completely out of my comfort zone,” said Cindy, whose nursing career includes working as an early pregnancy nurse specialist at QMC before she started work in research nursing roles.

“But Lucy Ryan (research manager) and her DREEAM colleagues have made me and my colleague from Obstetrics and Gynaecology feel very welcome and they have been so supportive.”

Cindy has been seconded to the DREEAM research team at NUH, with research midwife Lesley Hodgen (pictured with Cindy above), after routine research trials were paused across our hospitals, to enable resources to be prioritised into finding effective treatments for COVID-19. Attending the dedicated Research Education days, for colleagues supporting high priority trials, helped to prepare her for supporting COVID-19 patients.

These sessions gave Cindy and colleagues a good grounding in how to use PPE correctly, and background on all of the priority studies that NUH is supporting. So far, she has been involved in screening patients and taking samples for both the RECOVERY and ISARIC trials, while other studies are expected to be added in soon.

“Before going on to a COVID-19 ward, I did feel really anxious,” said Cindy. “Patients there are clearly very sick and often on oxygen, but we were told we would not be asked to do anything we felt was beyond our capabilities.”

Shifts start with a daily briefing from DREEAM about the latest admissions and then research nurses visit patients on the wards. As well as checking on patients and taking samples including throat swabs and bloods, their tasks include talking to patients and gaining their consent to be included in studies.

Cindy is also pleased with how senior research nursing team leaders including Claudia Woodford, Divisional Lead Research Nurse for Family Health and Medicine; and Lyndsey Crate, Clinical Research Manager, Medicine Division, have worked to help new recruits adjust to the pressures and different requirements of the COVID-19 studies.

The work on the COVID-19 wards is tiring and can be emotionally draining, but Cindy says she is pleased to be making a contribution to the battle against Coronavirus during her secondment.