My Neurology Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF): First year – by Dr Abdusshakur Muhammad Auwal
By Dr Abdusshakur Muhammad Auwal, NIHR Academic Clinical Fellow, University of Liverpool and Walton NHS Foundation Trust
Introduction
The first year of my Neurology Academic Clinical Fellowship (ACF) has been intense but very rewarding.
It was intense due to the need to combine clinical work and research at the same time while maintaining competency in both.
Seeing one’s work directly helping patients through advocacy and the provision of “patient information leaflets” and indirectly by writing guides that help clinicians care for patients is extremely rewarding.
My work so far
The patients and public first!
I have written patient information leaflets and reviewed existing ones on various aspects of encephalitis such as HHV 6 encephalitis, Neuroimaging and CLIPPERS. I have also worked with Neurological Alliance to identify ways by which the care of patients with neurological conditions could be improved.
Conference report
I attended the Encephalitis International Conference 2024 in December last year, which is the largest gathering of encephalitis experts worldwide and I was honoured to have written the conference report which has been published in the reputable journal “Advanced Clinical Neuroscience and Rehabilitation”.
Article on Clinical Review of Encephalitis
Our group was invited to write an article to guide clinicians on the practical approach to managing encephalitis. This will be published shortly in Practical Neurology Journal, which is a sister to the British Medical Journal. Watch this space!
My Research – Study Protocol
My primary project for the Academic Clinical Fellowship is to use brain scans and data collected during the Covid-19 outbreak in the UK to identify affected areas in patients who experienced complications such as memory problems, anxiety, and depression.
I have already developed a robust protocol which will guide the running of this project and I hope to publish soon.
Clinical work
Working in a hospital over this year has equipped me with nuanced skills – especially in specialties like Infectious Disease – that I had not been exposed to before.
I also started my role as a medical registrar which is regarded as the most intense role in the hospital given that you are the go-to-person in the hospital in case of any complexities. This did not only improve my decision-making skills but also my leadership skills.
This year marks the successful completion of phase 1 of my training and I am glad to have come out of it with excellent feedback overall.
Plans for Second Year
Commencing my work on neuroimaging
Now that I have developed my study protocol, my next plan is to analyse the data once it arrives from our partner site in Cambridge. This will be my main research task for the second year of the ACF.
Article writing
I also have the opportunity to write a paper on how the various agents causing encephalitis can be monitored with the intention of prevention or timely intervention in the case of outbreaks. This will greatly help policy makers in making prompt decisions on rising infections.
This will be published in the next global report for encephalitis.
Developing my PhD proposal
Getting into a PhD programme often marks the end of a successful ACF. I have started developing the PhD proposal and intend to develop this further in my second year.
My research interest is to identify the causes of brain infections and drivers of death in this group of patients; and how this can be reduced in a low and middle income setting.
Clinical work
I will begin phase 2 of my medical training in Neurology which is very exciting as my lifelong career ambition.
It will be a lot of hard work combining Neurology training with research but it is something I am very much looking forward to.
Dr Auwal’s Academic Clinical Fellowship is supported by Encephalitis International! Thank you to all our supporters for helping us make research happen. If you would like to contribute to our other research projects, your support is greatly appreciated.