Dr. Helen Higham, Director for the OxSTaR Centre, is keen for the centre to be used for research into simulation training, to establish this form of training as an essential part of medical training.

DPhil Studies

Dr. Imogen Davies, Clinical Lecturer in the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, is studying for a DPhil in Anaesthesia. Her research is looking into aspects of simulation learning and teaching with joint supervision from the NDA and the University of Oxford Department of Education.

Rosie Warren – NHS Education South Central Research Fellow

Rosie Warren recently joined the department after securing a fellowship from NHS Education South Central. The purpose of the fellowship is to use simulation to help build a culture of patient safety within the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals Trust and region. Through working closely with the ward clinical staff she will explore reducing the incidence of hospital-acquired complications and utilise low and high fidelity simulation to bridge gaps in skills and knowledge.

Rosie has a comprehensive clinical background in critical care spanning sixteen years. Until recently she was a Senior Sister in the general intensive care unit at the Trust, a large busy unit accepting patients from many specialties. Whilst in this role she was involved in staff training and co-ordinated the Acute Life-Threatening Events: Recognition & Treatment course. 

Aside from her NHS duties Rosie is a member of the Territorial Army and has completed two operational tours. Within her military training she has been regularly exposed to realistic simulation of ballistic and battle wounds. These experiences have been very powerful learning medium and developed her keen interest in clinical simulation.   

Karen Edwards – ST7 Emergency Medicine Trainee with sub-speciality training in paediatric Emergency Medicine.

Karen has special interests in education, safety and the safe and adequate management of pain and anxiety in children. She has almost completed her training mostly in the South Central region but has also gained valuable training insights in Australia, Namibia and the US.

In Namibia she worked as project manager with the ministry of health and Surgical Eye International. The project brought cataract surgery for the first time to rural areas in Southern Namibia.  She also worked as chief medic on expedition in Namibia providing medical advice and overseeing the medical support for 120 expedition members. 

In Australia she worked at Westmead Children’s Hospital in Sydney on a critical care rotation in PICU and Paediatric Emergency.  She also had the opportunity to work as a flying doctor for NETS (New South Wales Neonatal and Paediatric Emergency Transfer Service) retrieving critically ill neonates and children from all over New South Wales. 

 Boston, USA: She won the Gilbert Bursary for her proposal which funded her to take one of the nursing sisters with her to Boston Childrens Hospital to observe their procedural sedation and analgesia training and credentialling programme. 

 She trained in high fidelity simulation in 2004 and is now working at the John Radcliffe with OxSTaR and NESC on a simulation fellowship. Her project examines innovative medication error reduction strategies using simulation and involving pharmacists in the simulation lab. The multidisciplinary approach aims to develop techniques to improve teamwork, transparency of incident reporting and safety awareness with the ultimate aim of reducing drug errors and decreasing risk to patients .