Shalom received a small research grant from TUF that he has used to get a pilot study off the ground. The study looks at how stone disease affects people when they’ve left hospital as well as the potential impact on their family and employment.
Whilst many urologists have an appreciation for how patients experience kidney stones when they are in hospital, it is hard to know what kidney stones are like for patients on a day to day basis when they’ve returned home.
Shalom had wanted to know more about this, but needed funding to get a project off the ground. Now that he’s received funding from TUF, Shalom has recruited 90 people to take part in a project that will see them fill in regular questionnaires and a bespoke patient diary where they can detail how many painkillers they’ve taken, additional visits to their GP or hospital, and how many days they’ve taken off work.
Shalom and his team hope to understand from this data what kidney stones mean for patients, their families, carers, and employers. He also hopes to understand the impact of kidney stones on the economy. What is the cost of the time taken off work?
“Without The Urology Foundation, we wouldn’t have been able to get this project off the ground. This kind of funding from TUF has a niche and important role to play; it can be very difficult to get a piece of work off the ground with large funding if you can’t show that you’ve done initial work. By investing in the initial phases of these projects, TUF proves itself to be invaluable and is helping us to generate income far beyond their initial investment.
“For me personally, this project has made me far more aware of what an impact research has on the day to day work of clinical practice. Everything we do needs to have a good evidence base, but it so often doesn’t have as much evidence as is necessary. This research has a real role to play.
“Certainly, this research has made me far more aware of what my patients experience once they’ve left the hospital: previously I’d been in the dark, but now I have a far more holistic view.”
