Academic Research History
I have done 6 years of University education so far, working on my papers as a Medical Ethicist, and have 5 years of PhD ahead of me.
My Undergraduate Dissertation was an opening enquiry to the way that the opioid crisis impacted chronic pain patients; my Postgraduate Research Dissertation is the theoretical exploration of the impact the opioid crisis to harm so many pain patients, and the consequences of it; and my PhD will go on to explore how to change things in the future, and the way in which we need to move forward to improve chronic pain care.
I did my undergraduate degree from 2017 to 2020 as a BA (Hons) Philosophy (2:1) with my honours dissertation titled "What are the Ethical Implications of the Harm Done to Chronic Pain Patients by the Withholding of Opioids, as a Consequence of the Opioid Crisis?" (1st). During my time as an undergraduate, I also had a number of articles about disability published on The Mighty, the links to which can be found on my resources tab.
Between my undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, I also got a qualification from an online course by Harvard Medical School, on a course entitled "The Opioid Crisis", in preparation for my postgraduate degrees.
I have just been awarded my MRes (MA in Philosophy by Research) in Medical Ethics, named "Withholding Relief: Why chronic pain patients deserve a quality of life, and how it became unimportant in the collateral damage of the opioid crisis" which can be found as a PDF in my resources tab (I am in the process of condensing it down into a smaller paper for clinical use).
My biggest accomplishment during my time as a Postgraduate, has been creating a new pain scale to replace the old-school 'tell me how bad your pain is between 1-10'. Just asking someone 1-10 means you not only have no information about the pain and therefore the injury itself; but rating pain by just numbers is entirely subjective to a patient's pain threshold.
My scale, initially designed to support chronic pain patients to communicate their more complex pain to their healthcare supporters, has since been taken on by multiple pain teams in the UK; has been used as part of a curriculum at a University in Canada; and has reached over 18,000 patients to support their pain care. I am always looking for more places and scenarios that it could help patients.
I hope to be starting my PhD part-time soon, along side of running my business, to continue my research and my pursuit of helping other chronic pain patients.
The alternative pain scale for chronic pain patients can be found available to download in it's easy-to-see version and low-ink easy-print version right here, and is free to use with my name on as found in my resources tab.
