How to Engage in Multicentre Collaborative Vascular Research:
The Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN)

Bosanquet DC1, “The Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN) committee” (Stather P, Sidloff DA, Dattani N, Shalhoub J, Pancholi J, Gall T, Lear R)

Author affiliations:

1.  VERN Committee Member, South East Wales Vascular Network, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, CF14 4XN.

Correspondence and requests for reprints:

David C. Bosanquet

South East Wales Vascular Network

University Hospital of Medicine

Heath Park, Cardiff, CF14 4XN, UK

Telephone: 02920 743356

Fax: 02920 742954

Email:

Article type: Educational article (Edutorial)

Word count (excluding title page and references): 635

Key words: Research, Collaborative Research, VERN, Vascular and Endovascular Research Network

Running title: Collaborative Research; the Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN)


Single centre surgical audit and research, whilst appropriate in certain instances, suffers from a variety of problems; limited patient numbers, long recruitment times, lack of generalisabiltiy, and introduction of biases, to name but a few. Trainees who rotate frequently through different hospitals and centres may devote time to numerous small projects, which fail to produce results which are of sufficient interest to warrant publication and change surgical practice. In response to this, the collaborative surgical research model has been developed over the last 10 years, within the UK surgical community.1 Research collaboratives comprise groups of trainees with an interest in research, who are primarily led by trainees, with guidance and oversight provided by academic leaders in the field. Audit and research proposals are carefully selected and piloted prior to widespread dissemination, to ensure they are feasible, and of value to the surgical community. Trainees are ideally placed to deliver on large multi-centre studies as they are highly motivated, rotate through different hospitals, and are required to demonstrate evidence of research and audit during their training years. To date, surgical research collaboratives have led complex multi-centre randomised clinical trials, national snapshot audits of current practice, and led on global audits of surgical practice. The current network of UK collaboratives includes 16 ‘regional’ groups and 8 pan-UK ‘specialty' groups, who meet annually at the National Research Collaborative Meeting.
The Vascular and Endovascular Research Network (VERN) was founded in 2014 with the goal of undertaking and promoting high quality vascular audit and research across the UK. As of November 2015, VERN became the official UK vascular trainee research collaborative, working in parallel with the UK vascular trainees group, the Rouleaux Club. VERN was designed to be a multi-disciplinary research collaborative and therefore has representation from the Society of Vascular Nurses and the Society for Vascular Technology. As of 2016 it holds a formal position on the Vascular Society Research Committee and works closely with Professor Chetter, the newly appointed Royal College of Surgeons of England Surgical Specialty Lead for Vascular Surgery research, to ensure VERN has a broad base of expertise and experience.

Work to-date comprises UK-wide audits of current practice, including an audit of best medical therapy for patients enrolled in abdominal aortic aneurysm surveillance, presented at the 2015 Vascular Society of Great Britain and Ireland (VS) Annual Scientific Meeting (ASM), and updated at the Charing Cross Symposium 2016. An audit of best medical therapy of arterial referrals to vascular clinics is ongoing, and a survey of regional variation in vascular services has completed data collection. In addition, a prospective study and a randomised controlled trial are both currently under development, awaiting ethical approval. Whilst our initial projects have been developed ‘in-house’, the future of VERN lies in linking surgeons with specific research ideas with a body of interested and driven trainees. VERN can provide basic methodological support when required, however research projects remain the ownership of the individual(s) undertaking the work, with VERN acting simply as the facilitator. VERN are also looking to work with like minded European trainee collaboratives.

There is an increasing recognition as to the importance of collaborative research in the UK, and a recent ‘Consensus on Research Output for CCT’ meeting at the Association of Surgeons in Training 2016 conference voted overwhelmingly in favour of recognising collaborative research as an important research output for trainees.

2016 will see VERN and the Rouleaux Club host a ‘Dragons Den’ session at the VS ASM, where trainees can pitch their ideas for national research to the ‘Dragons’, comprising senior vascular academics. The winner will be given VERN support to help mature their proposal to a full collaborative research project in addition to a financial prize.

Anyone interested in joining VERN is encouraged to register their details online at http://vascular-research.net.


Conflict of interest

None

Funding

None


References

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