Your Path in Research: Marie Rawdon

New care pathway leads to new career path

Marie Rawdon had not thought about research and its direct benefits to frontline care. That was until she was assigned a new project back in 2003. 

Marie was working as a staff nurse for Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Trust at the time at the Child & Adolescent Inpatient Unit at Ash Villa. They needed a new integrated care pathway and Marie was at the heart of the process to develop and roll it out.

Marie explains: “Very early in 2003 my colleagues and myself developed an integrated care pathway for young people with eating disorders. There were inconsistencies which were causing tensions with young people and staff, we needed a consistent service.

“I sort of fell into it because I was passionate about improving services.  I then worked as a Nurse Specialist in the community, working in schools, working with GPs and social services to raise awareness of the early identification and provide treatment of a range of mental health problems in young people.”

Having had the experience of using the evidence gained from research to build a care pathway, Marie returned to research in 2012, this time to bolster her management and leadership skills for her then role as a deputy manager by studying for a masters in public health.

Then in 2018 Marie came to a crossroads. She had realised that middle management was not for her and during maternity leave, she also realised that she missed a project. With the bit between her teeth, Marie returned to work and after a few weeks back, she secured a secondment as an early career researcher post funded by the regional Clinical Research Network.

Marie said: “It was a fantastic opportunity which actually led to me getting my PhD funding. I was supporting NIHR studies for one day a week and then one day a week writing a systematic review supported by Dr Ffion Curtis.”

A year later and Marie started her PhD exploring acceptability and effectiveness of an online body image training programme in mental health services targeting conditions including anorexia, bulimia and binge eating. 

Now a PhD student, Marie from Swaton near Sleaford, is looking forward to continuing her journey in research.

She said: “Research is the answer, it’s the foundation of everything in all walks of life not just within health. It facilitates development of new treatment options and advancements for patients to help make their lives better.”

Speaking about the future, Marie said: “I would like to work as a clinical academic, I went into nursing to help people and I still want to help people, but I want to do it in a robust evidence-based way.”