Cardiac Research Fellow

Job overview

Cardiac Research Fellow

Applications are invited for the position of Cardiac Research Fellow to join the Cardiac Research Department at Northwick Park Hospital, London North West University Healthcare NHS Trust.

The successful candidate will play a key role in a diverse portfolio of commercial and non-commercial cardiovascular research studies, gaining extensive experience in clinical research delivery, patient recruitment, trial management and advanced cardiovascular imaging.

The Cardiac Research Department is fully integrated within the Cardiology Service and works closely alongside consultant cardiologists, physiologists, research nurses and clinical trial practitioners to deliver high-quality cardiovascular research.

This full-time, fixed-term post is initially offered for 12 months, with the possibility of extension subject to funding and satisfactory performance.

We welcome and actively encourage informal discussions and visits before application.

Candidates must:

• Be medically qualified.
• Be registered with the GMC and hold a current licence to practise.
• Possess MRCP (or equivalent).
• Satisfy Enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) requirements.

Main duties of the job

The primary responsibility of this role is to act as an Investigator across the Cardiac Research Department's portfolio of commercial and non-commercial clinical research studies, contributing to patient recruitment, study delivery and the clinical management of research participants.

The post-holder will receive the full support of the department to fulfil their training requirements and develop special interests. There will be the opportunity to develop specialist echocardiographic techniques, such as stress echo and MCE.

There is specific training available for those seeking BSE Transthoracic and Stress echo accreditation.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The successful candidate will take a proactive and major role in the department’s commercial and non-commercial research, including recruitment of patients and responsibility for their clinical care throughout trials. The department conducts research involving all aspects of heart disease.

We hope this post will be attractive to candidates with a genuine passion for research who would be interested in following one of the following routes:

• Candidates looking to develop their research skills. This may be, but is not limited to, candidates with cardiology experience but waiting to obtain their NTN.
• Candidates looking to develop their research skills, also with an interest in learning how to perform, interpret and report stress echocardiography and myocardial perfusion images to a high standard. This role will support any candidate wanting to work towards BSE accreditation in stress echocardiography, however, candidates interested in stress echocardiography/myocardial perfusion imaging must be competent in transthoracic echocardiography (TTE). BSE accreditation in TTE is not a requirement and candidates working towards TTE accreditation will also be supported in this role. Candidates interested in pursuing this route will be asked for perform a basic echo at interview.
• Candidates looking to undertake their own original research project, up to the level of MD, under the supervision of Professor Roxy Senior. This may be, but is not limited to, candidates already with their NTN, looking to take a break to undertake a research project.

The Echocardiography Department at Northwick Park has been granted Centre of Excellence status in the UK for Transthoracic, Transesophageal and Stress Echocardiography, following a formal visit by the British Society of Echocardiography. It is one of the busiest departments in the country, performing ~ 8000 echocardiograms and 3000 stress echocardiograms annually. The department is also one of the few hospitals in the UK to host National Stress Echocardiography workshops throughout the year. Our facilities include a new angiography suite, along with state-of-the-art echocardiography equipment, a dedicated 26 bed cardiac ward, 8 bed coronary care unit, heart failure unit and 8 bed day care unit for elective outpatient procedures. This post does not have any general medical on call commitments but we will work with the candidate to ensure that clinical skills are able to be maintained.

To view the main responsibility, please see the attached Job Description and Person Specification