Laurence Knowles
Current Position: Academic Clinical Fellow in Neurology
Research Field: I am interested in the relationships between cognition, sleep and movement disorders and currently work with the Neurodegeneration Imaging Group to investigate these in a large cohort of patients with Parkinson’s Disease.
Why did you decide to undertake clinical academic training and what pathway have you taken so far?
I have always been interested in combining clinical work with academia. My interest in research began at the University of Cambridge, where I carried out work in visual cognition as part of an undergraduate degree in neuroscience. Following my clinical training in London I moved to Exeter as an internal medicine trainee, where I started working with Professor Adam Zeman on disorders of visual imagery. This was tricky to balance with full time clinical work, so a formal clinical academic training role as an ACF was very attractive as it offered me the option to start clinical training as a neurologist whilst having protected research time.
Why did you choose to conduct your clinical training at the University of Exeter and what are some of the highlights?
The University of Exeter is a fantastic environment to start working in the clinical neurosciences – there are world class research facilities at the RILD/CRF and a great community of researchers in the fundamental neurosciences. The recently inaugurated Exeter Brain Network provides a great forum to foster collaboration between clinicians and scientists and there is institutional backing with new recently opened BRC which has a specific theme for supporting research in the area of neurodegenerative disease.
What challenges have you faced during your clinical academic training and how have you overcome these?
Balancing the competing time demands of academia and clinical work is always challenging, but in my case an additional difficulty has been the introduction of a new neurology training curriculum following the “Shape of Training” review which has been tricky to combine with research – the key as always is flexibility, organisation and clear communication with all parties involved!
What impact has clinical academic training had on your career and what are your next steps?
I’ve had a lot of great opportunities which have been facilitated by a clinical academic role – as well as my own research I’ve been able to collaborate with different teams here in Exeter and elsewhere and I’ve also gotten involved with the British Neuropsychiatry Association (BNPA) which is a national society. I have around two years funding left of my ACF so my priorities are getting our data published and developing applications for doctoral level funding.
What advice would you give to an aspiring clinical academic?
The most important thing is to be persistent - if you are genuinely interested in doing research then don’t be disheartened if things don’t work out straight away early in your career. I had a lot of early opportunities which didn’t work out (papers not published, positions which I wasn’t shortlisted for), but if you are keen and make the most of opportunities that come your way then you will make it work. Get in touch with established researchers with your ideas, try and make it to scientific talks or conferences and keep an open mind as to where your research career might take you and you would be surprised at how many opportunities are out there!
