1. Name, current role, speciality and ST level
Dr George Bethell, NIHR doctoral fellow, Paediatric surgery, ST5
Orcid: 0000-0002-1302-0735
Soton profile: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xkhyt/doctor-george-bethell
2. Tell us a bit about your research
Necrotising enterocolitis causes severe bowel inflammation resulting in babies becoming critically unwell. It mainly affects premature babies (who can be born as early as 22 weeks) in the first few weeks of life.
A quarter of babies don’t respond to intensive care treatment and require surgery to remove bowel which has died to prevent them from getting sicker. Sadly, about a third of the most unwell babies don’t survive. Those that do are often left with significant long-term health problems. These include neurological disability and being left with inadequate bowel to feed normally meaning they require long-term feeding into the vein.
Deciding which babies will benefit from surgery is challenging. Surgeons must weigh up the risks and benefits of performing major surgery on a tiny baby in the knowledge that surgery itself may cause harm. Work form my ACF in Southampton suggested that this uncertainty causes delays in performing surgery which may contribute to poor outcomes.
My research aims to understand how surgeons currently decide which babies get surgery and to investigate whether better, more objective, methods than are currently used can help surgeons identify which babies need surgery and when. Ultimately I aim to use this information to improve outcomes for these babies.
3. Why did you choose to apply for an ACF/CL/SFP in Southampton?
I successfully applied for an ACF in paediatric surgery in Southampton which I started in 2017 and completed in 2020. I chose Southampton as it is one of the leading academic paediatric surgical units nationally and has a strong reputation for leading collaborative research which is essential to a small specialty such as paediatric surgery.
The infrastructure provided by the SoCATS network was essential in my successful completion of my ACF. A huge amount of resource is provided and I made good use of the training and travel budget to present at national meetings and attend training courses essential for my development as a clinical academic.
I achieved multiple international and national presentations during my ACF and accomplished multiple peer-reviewed publications. Using results from my ACF I was successful in obtaining funding from the NIHR for a doctoral fellowship and am currently undertaking this fellowship as a PhD candidate at the University of Southampton.
4. What is next for you?
I am due to complete my doctoral fellowship in October 2025 and will look to continue my clinical academic career following this. I hope to secure a clinical lectureship post and continue my research implementing findings from my doctoral fellowship to determine whether infants with necrotising enterocolitis would benefit from earlier surgical intervention.
