Rosalie Magboo is an award-winning cardiovascular nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital. She received a Barts Charity Healthcare Professional Clinical Research Training Fellowship in 2021.
Through her fellowship, Rosalie is exploring the effects of living with Marfan syndrome. This is a rare inherited condition that commonly affects the heart, arteries, eyes and skeleton. Many people with Marfan syndrome develop heart abnormalities, so they require life-long monitoring and, usually, at least one major surgery. Rosalie’s research will help design ways for patients with this condition to improve their mental health and quality of life, before and after heart surgery.
How the Fellowship has supported Rosalie
There is little evidence about the health-related quality of life and psychosocial aspects of living with Marfan syndrome, before and after heart surgery. The Fellowship offered Rosalie the opportunity to build on her expertise – having worked directly with patients as a cardiovascular nurse at St Bartholomew’s Hospital – and contribute to clinical and scientific research.
And it is already having a huge impact. The insights of this work will not only contribute to existing research, but it places it in a UK population for the first time. As a novel study, it has the potential to influence national practice and policy for the care of patients with Marfan syndrome.
The Fellowship has also had an impact on Rosalie’s professional development:
The Fellowship has given me the opportunity to collaborate internationally, raising awareness around the world at the same time. It has also given me the opportunity to educate nurses and other health professionals on the psychosocial impact of living with Marfan syndrome through the publications that I have written related to this work. It is a great chance for nurses and Allied Health Professionals to develop our dream of becoming a clinical academic. I have always wanted to do research and when I saw the opportunity from Barts Charity, I grabbed it.
What’s next for Rosalie
Since starting the Fellowship, Rosalie has recruited around 250 patients to join her study and has published an editorial exploring the psychosocial impact of living with Marfan syndrome in the British Journal of Cardiac Nursing.
Rosalie now plans to expand her research internationally, building on the connections she has made around the world.
What advice would Rosalie give someone thinking of applying?
You will develop yourself personally and professionally and at the same time help your patients. Thank you to Barts Charity for giving us the opportunity. Nursing and Allied Professions research is important and there aren’t many opportunities of this kind.