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. 2021 May;21(3):182-188.
doi: 10.7861/clinmed.2020-1072.

The Volunteers in Research programme: supporting COVID-19 research and improving medical training in parallel

Tamsin McKinnon  1 , Alastair Watson  2 , Liam Richards  1 , Jackie Sears  3 , Matthew J Brookes  4 , Christopher A Green  5
Affiliations

The Volunteers in Research programme: supporting COVID-19 research and improving medical training in parallel

Tamsin McKinnon et al. Clin Med (Lond). 2021 May.

Abstract

COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on society, global healthcare and daily life. The redeployment of research staff to patient-facing roles in the NHS left a depleted workforce to deliver critical urgent public health research (UPHR). We aimed to support UPHR studies and medical student training by developing and implementing a medical student Volunteers in Research programme. We further sought to gain insights about medical students' perceptions of this programme. We collected prospective data and conducted a retrospective survey as part of a service evaluation to assess the value of this clinical research experience to students, as well as motivators and barriers to taking part. The Volunteers in Research programme successfully supported UPHR studies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We generated important insights to help aid the wider implementation of this programme nationally to support essential research and medical student education.

Keywords: COVID-19; clinical research; medical education; service evaluation; volunteer network.

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Figures

Fig 1.
Fig 1.
The recruitment and training pathway of medical student participants on the Volunteers in Research Programme. DHSC = Department of Health and Social Care; GCP = good clinical practice; PI = principle investigator.
Fig 2.
Fig 2.
Medical student perceptions of skills gained from volunteering. Selected from a list the skills that they believed they had developed on the Volunteers in Research programme, n = 20.
Fig 3.
Fig 3.
Motivators and barriers to taking part in the Volunteers in Research programme. a) Motivators, n = 62. b) Barriers, n = 65–67. CV = curriculum vitae; GCP = good clinical practice.
Fig 4.
Fig 4.
Medical student opinions about research experience in the medical curriculum. a) Should greater research opportunities should be included in the medical school curriculum, n = 68. b) Which of the formats of research experience opportunities would they prefer, n = 68.
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