Role

I am a Senior Clinical Lecturer in Ageing in the Centre for Public Health at Queen's University Belfast (QUB) and Consultant Geriatrician in the Belfast Trust.

Training

I was awarded my undergraduate medical (2004) and PhD degrees (2015) by QUB. As well as general and specialist training posts in Northern Ireland I have undertaken junior medical jobs in the Republic of Ireland and Uganda.

Research Interests

My research aims to better understand, prevent and manage disease in older people. My funded research interests thus far have focussed on the interfaces and overlaps among delirium, dementia-causing diseases, frailty and perioperative health. Funders include Alzheimer’s Research UK, National Institutes of Health and Northern Ireland’s Public Health Agency Research and Development department. My research group are investigating how blood and cerebrospinal fluid markers of dementia can inform our understanding of delirium processes, and vice versa. This further supports efforts to accurately describe the biological and clinical features of delirium, which I have championed. Recruitment has also recently completed on a study of frailty assessment pre and post renal transplant.  

Research Responsibilities - Highlights

I am the clinical lead for the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA), a cohort study of 8,000+ individuals aged 50 and over in NI. I have established Northern Ireland’s first Memory Clinic Biobank, within which patients attending geriatrician-led memory clinics are routinely invited to donate blood and CSF to the NI Biobank. I have also established an active Memory Clinic Patient and Public Involvement group to enhance research quality.

Research Group

I lead a vibrant research group within the Centre for Public Health’s broader Ageing Research Forum. Two completed PhD students are in post-doctoral academic positions and UG and PG students have secured prizes, funding and publications.

Teaching and Education

My support of UG training more broadly includes regular delivery of delirium and dementia lectures to medical students and being on the Expert Reference Group for the Delirium Health Professionals Ireland (DelHPIre) project, an all-Ireland research initiative designed to improve delirium recognition, management, and prevention across various healthcare professions. The educational videos produced can be found here deliriumeresource.com. I lead QUB’s Specialty Foundation Programme, which places selected postgraduate trainees in academic posts and also QUB’s Post Graduate Certificate in Academic Medicine.

Research Roles

Relevant current roles include secretary of the European Delirium Association, membership of the British Geriatric Society’s Research and Academic Committee and ISTAART’s Perioperative Cognition and Delirium Professional Interest Area executive committee and the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration. I am an Atlantic Fellow for Equity in Brain Health at the Global Brain Health Institute. I am on the editorial board of the Delirium and Delirium Communications journals and steering committees for research studies. I regularly reviews for journals and grant review bodies.

Clinical Role and Responsibilities

In my clinical role, I run weekly memory and brain health clinics, a multidisciplinary regional neurodegeneration meeting, and a lumbar puncture clinic to sample cerebrospinal fluid for dementia-related analyses.