PhD scholarship begins to take shape

Jane Bradshaw, a physiotherapist in the Be Pain Smart Service at Royal Rehab was the successful recipient of the first PhD Scholarship partly funded by Royal Rehab in collaboration with the University of Notre Dame Australia.

Nurturing research partnerships with universities is a key priority for Royal Rehab as it strives to remain at the forefront of creative thinking.

The tax-free PhD scholarship, valued at $30,000 per annum for up to three years supports Jane to undertake research under the direction of an expert academic and clinical team from the University of Notre Dame Australia and Royal Rehab.

The research aim is to enhance flourishing in rehabilitation inpatients with spinal cord injury (SCI) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).

Human flourishing is defined as a ‘phenomenon that relates to how a person experiences life, demonstrating resilience, thriving, and posttraumatic growth’. Human flourishing also encompasses positive emotions, such as hope, gratitude, and love. When care includes emotional aspects, it improves health outcomes, wellbeing, and quality of life.

Jane identified that there was not only a research gap regarding human flourishing within the context of inpatient TBI and SCI rehabilitation, but also in the interventions that could be used to enhance patient experience and improve the recovery process.

Jane is passionate about supporting people’s journeys and ‘meeting them where they are.’ She also wants to understand how best to support people to ‘bounce back’ after trauma.

Co-design

Currently in the literature review phase of her research, later this year Jane will be using experience-based co-design to ‘tap into the rich lived experience’ of TBI or SCI to design an intervention to enhance human flourishing following TBI or SCI that can be both implemented and evaluated as party to the research.

A special partnership and a supportive culture

Jane has nothing but praise for her supervisors and the support she has received from Royal Rehab. She has described the collaboration between educational institutions such as Notre Dame Australia and Royal Rehab as ‘vital’, remarking that ‘universities bring a depth of experience in the fields of education and research, which is essential to enhancing patient outcomes’. Jane says it is the supportive and positive culture at Royal Rehab that makes research such as hers possible, resulting in ‘great outcomes for staff’ and being ‘brilliant for patients’.

Jane says she hopes her research will result in a greater understanding of the ‘ingredients for recovery’. Her goal is to create a program that enables more patients to experience well-being and a better quality of life despite their traumatic injury.

Jane Bradshaw (L) with Julie Pryor, Director of Research (R).