The Alan and Sheila Diamond Charitable Trust fund post-doctoral position

The Alan and Sheila Diamond Charitable Trust have kindly sponsored a one-year post-doctoral post for former UCO student, David Hohenschurz-Schmidt, following his PhD studentship, which was also funded by the Trust.

During his PhD, which was undertaken at Imperial College London and jointly supervised by renowned pain researcher Professor Andrew Rice and Dr Jerry Draper-Rodi, UCO Senior Research Fellow, David developed guidelines for the conduct of randomised clinical trials of nonpharmacological interventions. He led an international endeavour to develop best-practice recommendations for ‘sham’ controls, a known problem in manual, physical, and pychological therapy trials, and received significant attention and support from across the research community. The outcome of this work aims to make the study of therapies like osteopathy more rigorous. David has presented his research at numerous international conferences, including the world congress of the International Association for the Study of Pain or the annual meeting of the German Pain Research Society. In recognition of his research contributions, David has received prizes from the Institute of Osteopathy and the Society for Back Pain Research.

In the final year of his PhD, David also developed an osteopathy-based intervention for people with painful diabetic neuropathy. In his newly created post-doctoral role he will be testing this intervention in a clinical trial. The NeuOst study will start recruiting patients early next year. Apart from expanding the scope of osteopathic practice, NeuOst will be an exemplary trial to test the feasibility of the newly developed methodological recommendations. Completing this work will set David up to apply for competitive fellowship applications at the National Institute for Health Research and elsewhere, endowing him means for larger independent research projects.

David will officially join the UCO Research department for the next year while also retaining partial employment at Imperial College.

Charles Hunt, Vice Chancellor of the UCO said:

“As a supporter of the UCO for many years we are extremely grateful for the ongoing generosity of the Alan and Sheila Diamond Charitable Trust and the important role they play in furthering the osteopathic profession. Through their funding of his PhD studentship The Charitable Trust kickstarted David’s research career, for which I know he is very grateful, and their renewed funding of his work promises to have a positive impact on osteopathy and far beyond.” 

To follow David’s work, visit his professional profile or join him for his talk at the 2022 iO Convention.