Katherine Hill
My experience in healthcare to date, through both my academic interests and infectious diseases training, has continued to draw me towards improving the lives of disadvantaged, marginalised groups. The growing awareness of the poor healthcare experiences of those living with multimorbidity globally has driven my desire to become a clinical academic who is able to further understanding into the interlacing effects of multi-morbidities in the context of infection and global health. I studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh from 2007 – 2012, followed by a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 2018. I have undertaken clinical training programmes in NHS Tayside and Health Education North West, and I am currently an ST6 Infectious Diseases/Medical Microbiology trainee in South East Scotland Deanery. Through my work in infectious diseases I have noted the significant impact of multi-morbidities on patient’s outcomes, particularly issues relating to mental health.
Alongside my full-time clinical training, I have developed a growing interest and experience in research. As a critical care clinical fellow I completed the NIHR Good Clinical Practice course and helped in recruitment and trial protocol design. This was a valuable introduction into the designing of trials and challenges in conducting them. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I led on an analysis of a large data set looking at the difference in cycle threshold values between different variants of SARS-CoV-2. More recently, I have completed the NIHR Associate Principal Investigator programme with “TIDE: A Trial of Decolonisation”. I am currently the chair of a Scotland-wide Infection Journal Club. This role has grown my interest in recent research publications, as well as leadership skills.
I have experience in working in low- and middle-income countries through working as an HIV community care supporter in Uganda, undertaking a medical elective in rural India and as a general physician in Madagascar. Whilst working in Madagascar, I was responsible on occasion for leading the clinical teams on the medical wards and outpatient department. This provided an invaluable experience in leading multi-disciplinary teams in a low-resource setting across cultural and language differences, skills which will I believe will be applicable to this PhD project.
My multimorbidity project is going to be analysing the prevalence and patterns of multimorbidity in patients with tuberculosis in Uganda and Tanzania, and to what extent it affects their outcomes through treatment. There will be three workstreams: a systematic review, a retrospective analysis of a large data set of patients attending IDI for HIV care, and a cross-sectional study with longitudinal follow-up of patients on tuberculosis treatment. Whilst there is evidence of increasing non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Sub-Saharan Africa, there is limited understanding of multimorbidity in the tuberculosis population and its effects on trajectories of care. This knowledge is required to ensure health care pathways are optimally resourced to address the “syndemic” of rising multimorbidity in the context of ongoing high prevalence of communicable diseases in LMICs.
Project: The impact of multimorbidity on trajectories of care for tuberculosis in East Africa
Primary Supervisor: Dr Derek Sloan (University of St Andrews)
Secondary Supervisors: Dr Christine Sekaggya-Wiltshire (Infectious Diseases Institute, Makerere University, Uganda, IDIMU), Prof Stellah Mpagama (Kilimanjaro Christian Medical University College/Kibong’oto Infectious Diseases Hospital) and Dr Sarah Mills (University of St Andrews)
