Towards the next stage of my PhD and of Life

I'm currently working on jumping over my first hurdle since starting, completing an RF1.  This is essentially a revised proposal that focusses down my initial ideas and planned research approach into something that should be achievable.  This is now almost done , ready to submit first thing in the new year.

I have narrowed down my area of study to assess if systems thinking, patient empowerment, and information technology could be combined to create efficiency improvements and cost savings in the delivery of health and care services for people with colorectal (bowel) cancer in Sheffield.  The aim with this is not to examine the entirety of all three areas but instead to focus on the areas where they intersect.

Narrowing this down further a slightly political area has entered into my thinking.  I am focussing on specific types of patient empowerment.  Within my examination of the area outlined above, I am planning assessing the impact of the political and philosophical basis of the original structure of the NHS and some of the reforms that have been tried.  In essence in appears that the NHS emerged out of socialism at a time when faith in science and faith in experts was almost universally accepted.  Many of the reforms that have been introduced are in the direction of free market ideology, introducing market principles.  I plan to explore the potential of interventions based on an ideology that is different to both of these.  By focussing on patient and community empowerment interventions that connect to asset based and community development principles I plan to examine the potential of community involvement for community benefit. By this I mean community in its wider sense not necessarily geographical communities.  e.g. local, national and international communities of cancer patients will be relevant to this study. This appears to connect to the philosophical underpinning of the emergence of the internet.  Tim Berners-lee is an advocate of open data.  Initiatives such as Wikipedia engage voluntary input to contribute to common good, or at least an increase in common knowledge.

Life drama's continue to distract my focus.  My relationship with my partner who was about to move in with me appears to have come to an end.  Feelings of loss connected to dealing with the recent death of my uncle and sister's partner, combined with PhD stress may have helped fuel recent arguments.  The next steps seem a little more daunting without some of the support and stability that I thought was going to be there.

Visiting my parents house over Christmas I am surrounded by books.  There must be over a hundred that I would like to read, at least half of which are directly relevant to my PhD.  This reminds me of all the reading and other work that I need to do over the next few months and years.  Whilst it still feels exciting, at the moment it also feels like a challenge.  For the first time, although probably not the last doubts about whether I am actually going to be able to get to the end have started to emerge.