Katherine Richardson
PhD title: The effect of preoperative exercise on postoperative outcome
I am now in the final year of my PhD that was awarded to me by KentHealth. I have thoroughly
enjoyed this opportunity as it has enabled me to work alongside Medway Maritime NHS for my data
collection. I feel working with both The University of Kent and Medway NHS has allowed me to
expand my research skills and career prospects. I have worked closely with patients prior to surgery
which I have thoroughly enjoyed and it has enabled me to gain patient perspectives on their
perioperative experience.
My research has entailed working with patients having surgery for either abdominal aortic aneurysm
repair or for cancer resection. Patients are randomised to either the experimental arm or control
arm of the study. The experimental arm involves preoperative exercise plus the usual care in situ at
Medway NHS and the control arm involves usual care only. I am nearly finished my data collection
for postoperative outcome markers including; length of hospital stay, postoperative complications
and risk of mortality. We will be using this data to perform a power analysis to determine how many
patients are required for a study of this nature. The potential impact of this research is that it could
lead to an adequately powered larger randomised controlled trial that will then address the effect of
preoperative exercise on postoperative outcome. Potentially this research can steer future
perioperative practice at Medway NHS and within the UK. Furthermore, this research may lead to
future mechanistic research projects whereby we will try to understand the mechanisms
surrounding preoperative exercise.