My Churchill Fellowship
Sharing what they learn is one of the responsibilities—and joys—that Churchill Fellows experience. While Fellows’ reports are in many cases available on the Churchill Trust website, this section of the site gives a shorter and—in some cases highly entertaining—insight into the experiences of our Fellows overseas.
Churchill Fellows who want to contribute their story, or what has happened to them as a result of the Churchill experience, can contact the association.
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Dr Julie McMorrow
2009 Churchill Fellow "Ironing out problems": UK iron research and US blood management programs |
I've just arrived back in Perth after my "once in a lifetime" April to June 2010 Churchill Fellowship experience. I'm working to develop pharmacist roles in blood conservation and assist the WA Health Patient Blood Management Project through my study of iron research and multidisciplinary patient blood management programs overseas. What an amazing (but very hectic) nine weeks it was!
I added a week of my own to squeeze in some UK time at the beginning of my Fellowship. The Division of Surgery at University College London has an active intravenous (IV) iron research program, headed by vascular surgeon Mr Toby Richards. Toby very kindly organised a research seminar to coincide with my visit – I felt very honoured to have such a great opportunity to learn about their clinical trials and other research in progress. Visits to University College Hospital, London and the Oxford Transplant Centre were followed by a great afternoon with Dr Annabel Nickol at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford. Annabel's group has been doing some very interesting IV iron research in respiratory medicine (but if I told you all about her next project she might have to shoot me...).
I was soon reminded that "expect the unexpected" should be every Churchill Fellow's motto. Next on my agenda was "Julie versus the Volcano". As you can imagine, it was "no contest" for a while. Although London might seem a great place in which to be stranded by a pesky cloud of volcanic ash, I had things to do and other places to be. It was so disappointing to cancel a much anticipated weekend in New York, where I was hoping to catch up with "fellow WA Fellow" Rebecca White. The wonderful team at Eastern Maine Medical Center had prepared a detailed itinerary for my first US visit, but kindly condensed and rescheduled it for two weeks later. I spent many hours over the next few weeks rescheduling everything else. My sympathies to all Churchill Fellows who had their travels disrupted.
Fortunately Melissa, Sue and Michelle at Qantas Perth (who were working under extremely trying circumstances themselves - can't thank them enough!) got me "over the pond" in the nick of time. After six days of being "on standby", "on the phone" and "in the queue", that "Welcome to the USA" sign at JFK looked pretty good to me. After a few adventures on New York "freeways", then some tornado-delayed, "you don't have a ticket" and "we don't have a pilot yet" flights, I finally made it to my paediatric blood conservation conference in Michigan less than a minute before it was due to start! The conference and blood management colleagues I met there were inspiring.
I spent a total of five weeks with multidisciplinary blood management teams at US blood conservation hospitals including Englewood Hospital and Medical Center in New Jersey, Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, three Swedish Medical Center campuses in Seattle and Providence Medical Center in Everett, Washington State. The Swedish Cherry Hill campus (formerly Providence Seattle) was the first US hospital to have an anaemia training program for pharmacists.
My marathon trip down the beautiful Pacific Northwest coast was quite an experience, although (of necessity) rather quick. After a Sunday visit to the Mount St Helen's area, I travelled through Washington, Oregon and California. I visited burns blood conservation researchers in Sacramento, where I attended rounds in the Burns and Intensive Care Units and observed paediatric burns surgery at Shriners' Children's Hospital and University of California-Davis. My last visit was to the bloodless/blood conservation liver transplant team, University of Southern California-Los Angeles. I'll expand on my experiences, findings and recommendations in my Final Report.
In my short time back in WA, I've already applied my Fellowship experiences to the care of patients at Royal Perth and other hospitals. An extensive revision of the RPH Bloodless Anaemia Management Guidelines and presentations to pharmacy, medical and nursing colleagues are in preparation. Submission of a case series and review article for publication is planned. Existing links with overseas researchers have been strengthened and some new links established.
In conclusion, I greatly appreciate this wonderful and unique opportunity to focus on the contributions to blood conservation made by many different members of hospital health care teams and (in particular) pharmacist involvement and training in bloodless haemoglobin maximisation for hospital inpatients and outpatients. My sincere and heartfelt thanks go to everyone who encouraged and supported me and made my Fellowship possible.