Research Assistant New

This exciting position will allow the successful candidate to work on the Marie Curie Commissioned Research Project project ?Hospital and ambulance service use by people in the final year of life?. The successful candidate will be based within the QUB Cancer Epidemiology Group in the Centre for Public Health and will work collaboratively with partners in the Marie Curie charity and the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS). The specific objective of this post is to better understand the use of the ambulance, Accident & Emergency (A&E), and inpatient hospital stay services by patients in their last year of life. The findings will contribute to the development of wider research ideas aimed at providing an evidence base for improvements to home-based palliative care, often the preferred setting for patients.

The main objectives of the project are to: (1) estimate the volume, timing, type, outcomes, and proportion of ambulance calls for end-of-life (EOL) patients (2022?2024) using NIAS data; (2) estimate A&E and hospital use by EOL patients (2014?2023) using data provided and accessed through the Honest Broker Service (HBS, situated in the Business Services Organisation, BSO) which is a Trusted Research Environment for Health and Social Care (HSC) Northern Ireland; (3) calculate hospital bed days and inpatient costs in the last year of life. The position will contribute to a programme of work aimed at delivering on these objectives. 

• A relevant primary degree (1st or 2:1 classification) related to the duties of the position such as epidemiology, social sciences, applied statistics, data science or public health-related area such as pharmacy or psychology, or

Optional or desirable qualifications for the job: 

• Master?s degree in epidemiology, social sciences, applied statistics, data science or public health-related area, or
• About to complete a PhD (expected submission within 3 months of advert) in epidemiology, social sciences, applied statistics, data science or public health-related area

• Specific, relevant experience of research methods in biostatistics/epidemiology 
• Experience in advanced statistical techniques, e.g. multivariable statistical analyses / Cox proportional hazards etc.
• Knowledge and experience of relevant methodological approaches to analysis of large population-based datasets
• Experience of using statistical packages such as STATA, SAS or R
• Demonstrable proficiency in academic paper writing

To be a model for Year 2 and 3 MBBS students to perform transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE), pleural ultrasound and abdominal ultrasound. The session is supervised by healthcare professionals trained in ultrasound who will act as facilitators and tutors instructing on ultrasound technique. You will be required to lie on a couch for up to 2 hours with the torso and abdomen exposed so the students can practice performing ultrasound on your chest wall or abdomen. This task involves application of ultrasound gel to an ultrasound probe that will be positioned at key landmarks on your chest and abdomen to visualise the heart, lung and abdominal structures. The facilitator will demonstrate how to obtain images of your heart/lung/abdominal organs using surface landmarks on your torso and abdominal walls before allowing the students to operate the probe and practice obtaining the same images. Your two hour session consists of 4 shorter rotations of 30 minutes each with approximately 10 students per rotation.

This event takes place on Thursday 10th July and you are required from 3:30pm-5:30pm at Guy's Campus, Shepherd's House, Chantler Centre.

You are required to lie on a couch for 2 hours with short breaks. The couch will have the head supported and a gown/blanket available. The torso must be exposed to allow the ultrasound of your heart, lungs and abdomen.

No experience of skill is required

To be a model for Year 2 and 3 MBBS students to perform transthoracic echocardiogram (TTE), pleural ultrasound and abdominal ultrasound. The session is supervised by healthcare professionals trained in ultrasound who will act as facilitators and tutors instructing on ultrasound technique. You will be required to lie on a couch for up to 2 hours with the torso and abdomen exposed so the students can practice performing ultrasound on your chest wall or abdomen. This task involves application of ultrasound gel to an ultrasound probe that will be positioned at key landmarks on your chest and abdomen to visualise the heart, lung and abdominal structures. The facilitator will demonstrate how to obtain images of your heart/lung/abdominal organs using surface landmarks on your torso and abdominal walls before allowing the students to operate the probe and practice obtaining the same images. Your two hour session consists of 4 shorter rotations of 30 minutes each with approximately 10 students per rotation.

This event takes place on Thursday 10th July and you are required from 11am-1pm at Guy's Campus, Shepherd's House, Chantler Centre.

You are required to lie on a couch for 2 hours with short breaks. The couch will have the head supported and a gown/blanket available. The torso must be exposed to allow the ultrasound of your heart, lungs and abdomen.

No experience of skill is required