At the end of 2021 a number of RSM members in the early stages of their careers competed for the prestigious Ellison-Cliffe Travelling Fellowship. Here we meet the successful candidates and find out more about their plans for undertaking specialist training during their time overseas.
A gastroenterology registrar working in the East of England, Dr James Kang plans to use his Ellison-Cliffe Travelling Fellowship to gain experience in risk prediction modelling for colorectal cancer screening. He will be travelling to the USA where he will be working under the supervision of Dr Jeffrey Lee at Kaiser Permanente Northern California.
James has already begun working with the team remotely, recently completing a systematic review and meta-analysis with Dr Lee on the prevalence of postcolonoscopy colorectal cancer.
He is especially drawn to the prospect of conducting epidemiological research using Kaiser Permanente’s comprehensive integrated electronic healthcare record system. This population-based database includes demographic, clinical, endoscopic, biopsy and prescription information on over 3 million individuals, representing high variety and high-volume data that would otherwise require extensive database-linkage.
He says: “I am grateful for this opportunity to travel to a US-based centre of excellence to obtain research experience in cutting-edge methodologies relevant not only to cancer but also to other diseases and global health problems.”