MASSEY
HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
ALUMNI
________

What led to you joining the health psychology program?

I had been lucky enough to be taught by a critical health psychologist in the final year of my more “traditional/mainstream” psychology undergraduate degree at a different university. He had seen my enjoyment for his paper and let me know of the Masters Health Psychology programme at Massey.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue study, so I worked for a year at a job I very much didn’t enjoy (data insights and reporting for a govt Ministry – very dry) and that was enough to light the fire in me to go back and do my masters.  

What memories stick out for you when you were studying at Massey?

Mainly the feeling of being so jazzed about the course content! It felt like I had finally found something that aligned with my values. Coming from a more “traditional/mainstream” psychology undergraduate degree, it now felt like a whole world of new knowledge and experiences was opening up to me. 

I also have fantastic memories of attending the International Society of Critical Health Psychology conference in Australia during my masters. This was such a privilege to attend and such an interesting and supportive conference for students. 

What career were you hoping for, and did you do any work towards it during your program? E.g. counselling course, volunteering?

I had no firm ideas about what I wanted to do post university. However, I was interested in the broad area of women’s health. I had enjoyed a paper on reproductive technology in my undergraduate anthropology degree and an essay I wrote for that course ended up being the driver for my eventual health psychology masters thesis. So, for the practicum placement I perused an internship at Women’s Health Action Trust in Auckland. I very much enjoyed this experience. 

What did you do after graduation - did it lead straight into a job/further training, what was that process like (what did you do to get there), what was the job/further training, how did the skills/health psychology help you get there? (if it did)

The year of graduation I continued working a number of part-time administration and teaching assistant roles at both Massey and WELTEC while I worked out my next step. I wanted to go on my O.E. and I looked for potential conferences relevant to critical health psychology and my particular masters topic. I found one in Copenhagen and had my conference presentation accepted. I managed to secure a travel bursary for one-way flights over. I was privileged to gain this fantastic opportunity to both share my research and get a step towards a career overseas. 

Once in London I applied for a number of roles at organisations such as the Wellcome Trust, Nuffield Council of Bioethics, and Cancer Research UK. It took me 3 months to get my first fulltime role in the UK – a job as a research fellow in the National Guideline Centre at the Royal College of Physicians.

Can you describe each job you had after graduating from health psychology, can you describe what the job involved, how you got it, what you enjoyed about it, the skills you brought to it and the skills you developed doing it, the best thing about that job, what you learnt on the way, (if relevant) what led you to look for a new post?

I spent five years working for the National Guideline Centre hosted at the Royal College of Physician’s in London. The NGC was commissioned by the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to develop evidence-based guidelines. NICE guidelines provide care standards within the National Health Service (NHS) for healthcare professionals, patients and their carers on the prevention, treatment and care of people with specific conditions as well as recommendations on the organisation of services and social care. 

I worked as a research fellow, and then senior research fellow, within the guideline technical team. Primarily this role involved undertaking systematic review and critical appraisal of clinical effectiveness, diagnostic, prognostic and qualitative research. I believe my Masters in a health-related critical research-based science degree helped me secure my first role. 

I learnt the more technical aspects of systematic-review and meta-analysis on the job, as my previous experience was more qualitative in nature. However, while the technical aspect of the role was specifically focused on systematic review and meta-analysis, the interpersonal aspects of the role were what I enjoyed the most – this involved working collaboratively with healthcare professionals who bring their practice experience, and patient and carers who bring their lived experience, to understand what the research evidence means for real life decision-making. 

Everyone sitting around the guideline development table is coming from different perspectives. The healthcare professionals, the patient and carer members, and the technical team, who go from knowing very little about the topic at the guideline’s inception, to knowing intimately what the evidence is for specific topics we’ve been charged to investigate. Examples of the diverse range of guidelines I worked on include major trauma services, glaucoma diagnosis and management, and reducing the risk of hospital-acquired venous thromboembolism. I also got to work with other European healthcare centres to develop their own locally relevant guidelines and work with charities to develop guidelines for their specific populations of interest. 

The critical thinking skills developed during my time in the Massey health psychology programme came in very good use in this job. And I loved working in a role where my critical research skills were being used to contribute to improvements in healthcare delivery and the quality of patient care. 

A key skill I developed in this role was to build trusting and productive relationships over time. Guidelines take a long to develop and people are bringing different experiences to the table. As a technical team we had to ensure that everyone’s voices were acknowledged and that everyone understood the parameters of the available research evidence and how it could be incorporated into clinical and service delivery decisions.

I left this role to move back to New Zealand. I started looking for roles in New Zealand while I was still in the UK as I didn’t want to come back with no job set up already. I interviewed for a role at the Health Research Council of New Zealand over videocall (years ago before it was the done thing because of Covid!) and secured a role as impact evaluation analyst there before I moved back. 

Looking back on this career trajectory so far - were there any courses or skills you gained in the health psych programme that were particularly useful?

By far my main takeaways from the health psychology programme that have continued to come in handy throughout by career have been critical thinking and critical appraisal of information, considerations of power – who is missing and who benefits from continuation of the status quo, and more breadth and depth of understanding around questions of what “counts” as evidence or knowledge. 

What advice would you give the current students who would like to work in your area?  

[This might be a tad controversial!] If you’re planning to work outside of academia, don’t embark on a PhD unless you’re absolutely sure you need it for the types of roles you’re interested in. I have a Master’s degree and that has served me extremely well. Many people at my first job had come to it with PhD’s but my not having one did not hold me back from securing the role or career progression once in there. 

Regarding your current role, could you please list the skills and experience that you needed to get the job and perform your role successfully?

I currently work at the Health Research Council as a senior policy analyst in the Strategy and Policy team. The HRC is a Crown Agency and the Government’s principal funder for health research in New Zealand. 

A lot of my role involves working collaboratively with other Government agencies across the health, science and innovation sector. This builds on skills I’ve grown throughout my career – sensitivity to the political and relational context we’re working in, perceptive of the influences and power dynamics involved in decision-making and bringing together analysis and critical assessment of evidence from both data insights and sector engagement. 

All of my roles have been academia-adjacent and have involved working to maximise the benefit of research for evidence-based or evidence-informed decision-making. And for all of them the highlight is the people involved, building relationships and creating spaces for people to have constructive, mana-enhancing conversations when it comes to understanding health and wellness, and the value of health research.