From inspiration to publication: bumps along the road (as part of the Postgraduate Programme in Evidence-Based Health Care)
Dr Helen Ashdown is a GP and Clinical Researcher in the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford. During her clinical academic training, she designed and led a study to investigate whether pain on going over speed bumps when travelling to hospital is a good diagnostic test for appendicitis. This was published in the 2012 Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal. She will describe her own bumpy journey through the process of answering a clinical question - navigating the tortuous course from research question, ethics, study design and recruitment through to Christmas radio shows.