Heidi R. Green

  • ROBINS-I: My Thoughts and Experience

    I’ve been meaning to write this post for a few months, so I’ll warn you – it’s going to be long. Since I realised I’d be using the ROBINS-I (Risk Of Bias In Non-randomised Studies – of Interventions) tool for my systematic review I have been searching for people, blog posts, and snippets of experience…

  • On Taking a ‘Mental Health’ Day

    The idea of a ‘mental-health’ day was first introduced to me at the age of about 16 when the film Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist came out. The film starts with Michael Cera’s character, Nick, taking a ‘mental health’ day from school, which finds him burning mix CDs in honor of his lost love. Predictably,…

  • Freelancing Whilst Doing a PhD: The Good Bits

    Outside of PhD life, I work as a freelance copywriter – yep, full-time PhD plus some-of-the-time writer. This week has probably been my most difficult yet, freelance-wise that is. I had to put my big-girl pants on and tell a client I wasn’t working with them anymore because they were messing me around with deadlines…

  • 5 TED Talks Every PhD Student Should Watch

    In lots of posts on this blog I’ve told you about my experiences, my advice and things I’ve learned during the process of my PhD. I thought it was about time I shared part of where I get my advice from; TED talks. They’re usually pretty short, and they give really good information in the…

  • #365papers March Update

    In my first post on this blog, I set myself 3 PhD-related goals for 2017. One of those goals was to read more widely, and more frequently, and I decided that doing the #365papers challenge would be a good way to do that. Here’s my March update. I found this month reallt difficult to be…

  • Doing a Systematic Review and Not Being Beaten by Piles of Paper

    As with most PhDs based in Health Services Research, my project started with a systematic review. This seems to differ hugely from lab-based PhDs which (from my experience anyway) largely begin with traditional literature reviews. Not sure what the difference is between the two types of review? I’ll point you in the direction of this…

  • Studies Within A Trial (SWAT) Workshop – Aberdeen, 23rd March 2017

    I realised earlier in the week that I haven’t talked a huge amount about the other projects I’m involved with aside from my PhD work, so this week’s post is about a project linked, but not central to, my own research project. Studies Within A Trial (SWATs) are smaller studies embedded within a host trial,…

  • Self-Care Tips to Keep You Sane: Podcasts

    At the end of January I wrote about the importance of academic self-care for PhD students; I didn’t delve too far into the specifics of what I do in my downtime and a lot of people asked. ‘It’s hard to switch off’ and ‘I find it hard to relax’ were the two phrases I encountered…

  • Women in STEM: Events, Challenges – and Why?

    I haven’t touched on any political or religious topics on this blog, I haven’t spoken about money or what I think of Donald Trump, and largely I think people believe that feminism belongs in that same pile of topics you-just-don’t-talk-about. I don’t agree. Feminism is important, and the process of explaining my views, beliefs and…

  • #365papers February Update

    In my first post on this blog, I set myself 3 PhD-related goals for 2017. One of those goals was to read more widely, and more frequently, and I decided that doing the #365papers challenge would be a good way to do that. Here’s my February update. I found this month a big more difficult…