Professor Mary Hickson

Expertise

Nutrition, dietetics, ageing, frailty, sarcopenia, clinical trials, clinical academic careers

Biography

I joined the University of Plymouth in Jan 2016 and almost immediately linked up with PenARC. I am part of the PenARC PhD Research Capacity in Dementia Care programme and working with one of the PhD fellows to explore nutritional care for those with dementia and their carers.

I have a long history working in the NHS in several London Teaching Hospitals, where I provided clinical care and led the Therapy Service Team for research and education, and helped to support the development of clinical academic careers. I have continued this element of my work at Torbay and South Devon NHS Trust where I lead the Torbay and South Devon Clinical School, with my colleague Susie Pearce.

The Clinical Schools is a regional initiative which aims to encourage nurses, midwives and other allied health professionals to look at their practice, challenge current thinking, try out new ideas and work out ways to measure what they're doing. At Torbay we have set up an innovative pre-doctoral and doctoral fellowship scheme for Trust staff, as well as holding an annual conference and working with individuals to undertake research. At the University of Plymouth my role is to develop the research output and capacity within our Dietetic Team, who run a very successful undergraduate taught programme for dietetics. Our areas of research include: Dietetic Practice and the Nutritional Management of Disease, Public Health Nutrition, Nutrition and Ageing, Nutrition and Metabolism. My own research interests are nutrition and ageing, frailty, and sarcopenia, dietetic practice, hospital food delivery and malnutrition screening and assessment.

I am also an NIHR Training Advocate for Dietitians and have previously sat on the judging panels for the NIHR Integrated Clinical Academic Pathway Pre-Doctoral scheme and Doctoral scheme. I have also judged the NIHR Research for Patient Benefit scheme.