Job Description

To act as a clinical fellow within the Nationally Commissioned Congenital Myasthenic Syndrome (CMS) Team. The post is consultant-supervised and covers both adult and paediatric patients and is mainly out-patient based and covers the whole of the UK with some outreach clinics.



The service offers a diagnostic service, emergency and routine advise on diagnosis and treatment. In addition, phone and email advice is provided to doctors, patients, families and their carers. This single UK service has one of the largest cohort of patients in the world and the post holder will be involved in audit and research too.



Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the largest NHS teaching trusts in the country. It provides a wide range of general and specialist clinical services and is a base for medical education, training and research. The Trust comprises four hospitals - the John Radcliffe Hospital, Churchill Hospital and Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Headington and the Horton General Hospital in Banbury.



Our values, standards and behaviours define the quality of clinical care we offer and the professional relationships we make with our patients, colleagues and the wider community.



We call this Delivering Compassionate Excellence, and its focus is on our values of compassion, respect, learning, delivery, improvement and excellence.



These values put patients at the heart of what we do and underpin the quality healthcare we would like for ourselves or a member of our family. Watch how we set out to deliver compassionate excellence via the OUH YouTube channel .



In 2023 NHS England launched its first sexual safety charter, and our Trust proudly signed it. We pledge zero tolerance for inappropriate sexual behaviour and commit to the ten core principles



Oxford University Hospital s promotes a safe, respectful hiring environment.



If you want to make a difference with us, come and join our team. Together, we will uphold the highest standards of care and professionalism.

Clinical:

The CMS clinical service covers Oxford outpatient clinics, which are attended by Professor Jacqueline Palace, consultant neurologist, Dr Sithara Ramdas, consultant paediatric neurologist, a part time specialist nurse, a part time specialist physiotherapist and Dr Yin Dong, lead for the neuroscience group at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine. Neurophysiology is led by Dr Ravi Knight and the NHS genetic screening by Anjali Loyd-Jali and the genetic research team led by Dr Yin Dong.

Outreach clinics are held at Great Ormond Street led by Dr Pinki Munot and less frequent clinics occur in Newcastle, Liverpool, Evelina London Childrens Hospital, Kings College Hospital, St Thomas Hospital and Bristol Childrens Hospital.

Occasional patients can be admitted for evaluation or management, and their cover is supported by the neurology and paediatric neurology resident doctors and consultants.

The service offers a diagnostic service, emergency and routine advise on diagnosis and treatment. In addition, phone and email advice is provided to doctors, patients, families and their carers. There are audits and service improvement activities that are undertaken by the team members and there is a rapidly developing database kept up to date by the nurses, clinical fellow and other members of the team which help with clinical management, audit, commissioning activity and research.

The post holders will be involved with all aspects of the service including clinic prep, OP and IP activity and advisory services, audit and supporting the nurses and other members of the team.

Research and Audit

The CMS team has a very active research portfolio, with an international reputation, having one of the largest CMS cohorts in the world. The service may host international visitors from around the world and medical students. Clinical and basic science research is integrated within the CMS team and the service.

The CMS fellow will be expected to carry out research projects and is encouraged to obtain a higher degree, and this post will provide an exciting opportunity to develop a broad publication portfolio and to gain experience in present their work at national and international meetings. Previous post holders have been involved in natural history, pregnancy and epidemiology studies, reporting new genetic CMS subtypes, muscle imaging treatment studies, and laboratory research to identify new CMS variants and to assess the functional implications of these at the molecular genetic level. Active collaborations with other international centres are ongoing.

It is expected the post holder will collaborate with the research teams and aid projects in addition to their own research and audit work.

CMS Clinical Fellow JD & PS November 2024

In addition, in January 2019 the University of Oxford and Muscular Dystrophy UK (MDUK) charity have founded the MDUK Oxford University Neuromuscular Centre to focus on the urgent mission of accelerating the discovery, development and deployment of new medicines to combat devastating neuromuscular diseases. The Centre builds on the already excellent research, training and patient care in Oxford to drive the development of novel experimental therapies more rapidly and increase national clinical trial capacity in neuromuscular diseases. The Centre is housed by the University of Oxford's Department of Paediatrics and spans across multiple departments including the Department of Paediatrics, the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, the Department of Physiology, Anatomy and Genetics, the Nuffield Department of Women's & Reproductive Health, the Department of Chemistry and the Oxford University Hospitals Neurology Services.