Liz Brewster

@lizbrewster.bsky.social

I lead research on NHS workforce, medical education and health inequalities. Academic, northern, gritty. Often found on the coast.

At work, I keep apologising to people for things I have not done, but seem incapable of pointing out that the reason is because I've submitted three academic journal papers for peer review in the last three weeks. I think I need to stop apologising.

It takes a village to finish a research project, it seems. To illustrate this fact, I've just called in a favour with our local MakerSpace colleagues for bespoke playing pieces for a board game. As you do.

My MapDoc research project has been doing some cheeky little extra patient and public involvement co-design work in our communities, and I've been blown away by how much the issues in our research matter to people, and how committed they are to supporting solving them.

“The numbers don’t lie!” is something that is exceptionally obviously not true if you do any work with numbers at all. So anyone who works with numbers and says that is the one that is lying to you.

I have been stuck at 4.9k followers for a week, and it is killing me. I'm witty, irreverent, I post nice pictures of loaves of bread, flowers and butterflies. I am happy to beg for a few more followers if needed to get to 5k. I have precious little shame.

At some point, I'm going to have to write the list of acknowledgements that thanks all the bands I've been listening to while finishing my big NIHR project outputs. Why don't academics do this? I can't be the only academic with go-to writing music.

"The system was never broken, it was built this way" In the medical workforce, this is illustrated well by the disparity in the experiences of resident doctors / consultants, mostly white, and SAS / LE doctors, mostly from ethnic minority communities. #WSM2025

Prof Emmanuel in front of a slide with the caption "the system was never broken, it was built this way"

New paper klaxon: 🎉 Impact of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic on the patient journeys of those with a newly diagnosed paediatric brain tumours A paper for life, not just for lockdowns - we provide suggestions for improving healthcare services to ensure an effective response in any time of crisis

Impact of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic on the patient journeys of those with a newly diagnosed paediatric brain tumour in the UK: a qualitative study

Objectives To explore the impact of the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic on the diagnosis, management and patient journey for children and young people with a newly diagnosed brain tumour in the UK. Desi...

bmjopen.bmj.com

If anyone would like a review of going back to work after the Xmas break, I refer them to journal proofs coming in for review on boxing day with a 48 hour deadline and Microsoft updating Word so that ctrl+b is no longer the default keyboard shortcut for bold text for no apparent reason.