My Topol fellowship problem / project:
Hand trauma is common and accounts for approximately 1/5 A&E attendances. On a population level there are 110/100,000 hand injuries in England and 179/100,000 globally annually. These injuries almost all require an x-ray, with fractures specifically accounting for approximately 51% of hand injuries in England. This creates a significant burden on A&E and radiology departments, an administrative burden associated with onward referral and there is the morbidity associated with missed, or miss-interpreted radiographs.
AI offers an exciting frontier in this field. Within my Topol Digital Fellowship project I will develop the first components in an artificial intelligence pipeline for automated image interpretation in hand and wrist x-rays, with a focus on sustainability and future-proofing of the macroarchitecture to facilitate real world impact and integration into clinical workflows. I also aim to engage clinicians, patients and the public to ensure these developments are acceptable to them and developed in line with their values and needs.
About me
Currently I work in London as a plastic surgery specialist registrar and fellow in clinical artificial intelligence at The London Medical Imaging & AI Centre for Value Based Healthcare. I graduated with a medical and neuroscience degree from Bristol University in 2014.
Whilst at University, alongside my degrees, I performed the trumpet at a semi-professional level and published a musical pedagogy (‘Smarties for Brass’) to help brass players learn musical scales, using the principals of implicit memory. After university I completed foundation training in the Oxford deanery, where, inspired by my musical background, I co-founded the Surgical Psychology and Performance Group (@surgperform), which researches psychology aspects of surgery and how to improve the performance and wellbeing of surgeons. I then moved to London for my surgical training, where I am now based.
I have over 30 peer reviewed publications, have presented work nationally and internationally, won prizes in research and have published a surgical book to help junior surgeons manage surgical emergencies. As a Fellow in Clinical AI I have worked under Professor James Teo at King’s College Hospital to help develop an AI powered intra-cranial haemorrhage phenotyping model. I also work with King’s College London University and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital (where I will be based for my Topol Digital Fellowship). Here my focus is to develop machine learning and computer vision capabilities in hand and wrist injuries to improve both functional and radiological assessment of patients. I believe this will facilitate improvements in patient management, rehabilitation and research into the treatment of hand and wrist injuries.