Dr Elizabeth Shephard

About me:

I am a Research Fellow working in the Primary Care cancer diagnostics field. I have been working in Professor Willie Hamilton’s Discovery group since 2010, specialising in producing risk assessment tools (RATs) for over eight cancer sites. Three of these RATs have contributed to new recommendations in the 2015 updated NG12 cancer guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). RATs have been piloted across GP surgeries in the UK.

I am the Process Evaluation and Recruitment reseacher on the Electronic Risk Assessment for Cancer (ERICA) cluster randomised controlled trial. This large trial assesses the clinical and cost effectiveness of six electronic RATs (eRATs) for lung, colorectal, bladder, kidney, oesophago-gastric and ovarian cancers in general practice. It is hoped that these tools will help GPs to identify possible undiagnosed cancer earlier. Using English cancer registry data, we hope to see an ~4% increase in the proportion of early stage cancers diagnosed, potentially amounting to 6,000 cancer deaths avoided per year.

Further information:

• Co PI on the NIHR SPCR funded INCODE Study. Inequalities in diagnosing coeliac disease in the UK: A Systematic Review. (2024-25)
• Co-applicant on the NIHR SPCR funded OSCA Study investigating attendance at suspected-cancer investigations in people with anxiety and/or depression (2023-24).
• Co PI on the Department of Health Policy Research Unit (PRU) in Cancer Awareness, Screening and Early Diagnosis study: Abdominal pain in primary care: establishing a clinical profile and diagnostic pathway for identifying cancer (2018-20)
• Co-applicant on a Department of Health Policy Research Programme (PRP) grant investigating bowel disease in young adults.
• Co-supervisor to PhD student Dr Alex Burns who is investigating the uncertainty during cancer diagnosis in the ERICA trial. I have also co-supervised a successful PhD student within our team.
• Academic Tutor to Medical Sciences undergraduate students (2017-2021).
• Ran the cancer RSSU for year 3 students on the BMBS medical programme from 2017-2020.
• Chartered Psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society.
• Scientific Communication Group (SCG) tutor for the Year 1 CSC1004 Fundamental Skills for Medical Scientists module from 2017-19.
• SSU Progress Support Tutor within the BMBS undergraduate medical programme from 2017-19.

Interests:

• Primary Care cancer diagnostics
• Risk Assessment Tools (RATs) for calculating cancer risk
• Use of observational data
• The Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) electronic patient records
• Process evaluation
• GP and patient experience

My research interests centre around using observational data to investigate the early clinical features of cancer in primary care. Through using large electronic databases containing anonlymised patient records, we are able to study how thousands of cancer patients interact with their GP in the year preceding their diagnosis.

Qualifications:

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Chartered Psychologist, British Psychological Society.

PhD in Psychology - Language and literacy in children and young adults with Turner's syndrome. (University of Essex).

MSc in Developmental Neuropsychology. (University of Essex).

BSc in Psychology. (University of Surrey: Roehampton Institute).