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The University of Southampton
Southampton Clinical Academic Training Scheme

Case Study: Dr Michelle Fernandes, ACF in Paediatrics

What is your current role?

I am in my second year of a Post-Doctoral MRC Clinical Research Training Fellowship and Academic Clinical Lectureship in Paediatrics at the University of Southampton. I am also a ST7 subspecialty trainee in neonatal medicine (GRID) at Wessex Deanery.  Previously, I completed a PhD from the University of Oxford (2011); a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funded post-doctoral research fellowship with the INTERGROWTH-21st Project team at the University of Oxford (2012-2015); an NIHR Academic Clinical Fellowship (2016-2020) and an NIHR BRC Career Development Fellowship at the University of Southampton (2020-2021). I am also the infant development lead of the Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute; as Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford; a scientific advisor to the WHO’s Global Scales of Early Development initiative and a Director of the Caribbean Centre for Child Neurodevelopment.

Dr Michelle Fernandes
Dr Michelle Fernandes

Tell us a bit about your research.

My academic pursuits involve the adoption of a ‘whole-child’ approach to early child development, towards making a positive difference to the most vulnerable children, internationally, at risk of developmental delay. My research focuses on: (i) understanding the interplay between factors affecting brain development during the first 1000 days of life; (ii) developing tools to better measure neurodevelopmental outcomes in young children, internationally and at scale, towards developing a universal surveillance system for the early detection of children at risk of developmental delays and (iii) evaluating scalable, family-centred interventions to promote/rescue early development.

I am involved with 18 child development focused research projects across 14 countries, with awards from the MRC, NIHR, NIH, USAID and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. I have authored three novel, international neurodevelopment assessment tools (the INTER-NDA, OX-NDA and Neo-NBA) to identify developmental delay in young children at scale. Since 2012, I have worked closely with the INTERGROWTH-21st, the INTERBIO-21st and the INTERPRACTICE-21st Projects; leading on the construction of the first international prescriptive standards of early child development. My most recent project, BRAINENDEVR, brings together comprehensive early life health, growth, development and environmental data on over 8,000 children from nine countries to develop an international estimator for clinical risk prediction of developmental delay at birth, 1 and 2 years of age.

Why did you choose to apply for an academic clinical lecturer post?

I have been a full-time academic before pursing my specialist training in Paediatrics and Neonatal Medicine and it was very important that I continue my academic work alongside my clinical training. I also wanted to develop my portfolio of academic skills as an independent researcher towards a future clinician scientist post. The ACL post is an important stepping stone in my transition from an early career researcher to an independent senior academic, while simultaneously progressing my clinical training in neonatal medicine. The post allows me to progress my clinical and academic portfolio and network simultaneously.

What opportunities did the post provide? What did it enable you to achieve?

The ACL allows me to commit 0.5 out of my 1.0 FTE working time commitment to research activities which has enabled me to carry out the BRAINENDEVR Project along with 12 other research collaborations, publish extensively, extend my network and apply for new grants, alongside my clinical training.  I have had the opportunity to lead on a number of international, regional and local research initiatives (including with the WHO, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxford Maternal and Perinatal Health Institute and the RCPCH); supervise and mentor students and researchers across the world; and engage with key stakeholders and policy makers in the dissemination and implementation of my research outputs.

How has your work benefitted patients and the public? Or how will they benefit in the future?

An estimated 250 million children globally fail to achieve their developmental potential by 5 years of age. The rate limiting step in child development, unlike in child growth, is the lack of standardised international assessment tools to measure early child development at scale and to identify those children at greatest risk for delay. By developing scalable tools to measure child development, internationally, by non-specialists I have endeavoured to overcome this rate limiting step. I am now involved in a number of projects testing the scale up of these assessments to population levels among preterm children (in Oxford), in preschool children (in the West Indies) and in Roma children (in Slovakia). My current project, BRAINENDEVR, aims to develop an international estimator for clinical risk prediction of developmental delay at birth, 1 and 2 years of age that can be used at scale for the universal screening of all children for neurodevelopmental delays. My hope is that my research outputs and efforts will eventually culminate in an universal and international early child developmental assessment strategy, in a similar manner to the monitoring of child growth internationally.

Read more about Michelle's research here.

Dr Michelle Fernandes with some of her patients
Dr Michelle Fernandes with some of her patients
Dr Michelle Fernandes with colleagues
Dr Michelle Fernandes with colleagues

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