Research Assistant (Fixed term, Part time) (MED019724)

The appointed person will assist and support the Primary Care Stratified Medicine research team in carrying out academic research aimed at improving the classification of diabetes in primary care for young people.  

For a patient with diabetes, diagnosing the specific subtype they have is essential as it helps inform which treatment will be most effective.  However, classifying diabetes can be challenging, with 7-15% of people with Type 1 and Type 2 estimated to be misclassified, and this is a particular problem in those diagnosed as young adults (aged 18-50).  In addition, genetic forms of diabetes such as MODY are young-onset and can be difficult to identify and because of its rarity, many general practitioners are unfamiliar with it. In the UK it is estimated that 77% of cases of MODY are misdiagnosed. 

We have developed and validated classification algorithms that are now available to help identify people with young-onset diabetes who have been misclassified. In this study, we aim to assess the feasibility of integrating these calculators with GP systems to link to patients’ electronic healthcare records and to assess the impact of flagging cases where a person’s diabetes subtype is discordant from the subtype predicted from the calculators.

The appointed person will recruit General Practices to the study, support the extraction of relevant data from primary care electronic health records at start and end of study and support clinicians in investigating identified patients. 

This post is available on a fixed term contract until 31/03/2025. Hours of work are part time (18.13 hours).

Informal enquiries may be addressed to Professor Nadeem Qureshi, tel: 0115 846900 or email nadeem.qureshi@nottingham.ac.uk. Please note that applications sent directly to this email address will not be accepted.

Closing Date: 05 Apr 2024
Category: Research and Teaching (R&T)