Dr Martha Martin
Martha is an academic trainee in General Practice at Imperial College London in the final six months of training. Her work in academia, technology and leadership has focussed on strengthening health systems, with a view to reducing health inequalities to achieving greater health equity. She completed her BSc in Management at Imperial College Business school and is passionate about learning from other health systems and sectors, having spent time in Paris, New York and working in management consultancy.
Martha currently leads the implementation of a Community Health and Wellbeing Worker model (cited in the Fuller Stocktake report) at her GP practice in Westminster, which is based on the Brazilian Family Health strategy, to provide this universally proportionate care to her patients in a deprived ward of London.
Her current research centres on healthcare technology. Recent work has included contributing to the novel British Standard’s Institute Validation framework for the use of AI in healthcare, and co-producing a guide to help boost public understanding of the use of data and AI in healthcare. Martha is also a co-investigator on a £840,000 NIHR managed NHS AI Award grant, which investigates the use of a clinical decision support system in prostate cancer to streamline the MDT. Early results have shown that up to 40% of cases could be sent straight to the treating clinician. As part of this research she has also led the co-design and development of a patient decision aid software tool, which gives patients access to their clinical cancer information and treatment options, and helps them work out their treatment preferences.
Reason for applying for the scheme
Martha applied to the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow Scheme in order to develop her leadership skills, and apply these in the context of health systems. She is passionate about translating both her clinical experience and individual patient stories into system level changes, with a view to contributing towards greater health equity.
During the Fellowship, Martha also hopes to gain experience developing policy and strategy across an integrated care system. She is excited about pursuing her interest in the design of systems and structures which align clinical colleagues across integrated care and directly improve care for patients. She is also excited about the role technology can have in aiding this. In particular, Martha aims to work with colleagues on projects in health technology and on new models of healthcare delivery, which focus on disease prevention and the social determinants of health.
In addition, one of Martha's primary motivations for applying to the scheme is to work alongside like-minded and inspiring colleagues - and Martha looks forward to networking across specialties, sectors and organisations.
The unique privilege that is the FMLM, and the opportunity to spend dedicated time immersed in healthcare policy and strategy, will inform and contribute to Martha's ambition to have a portfolio leadership career - in which her clinical work informs her work in health technology and health systems leadership.
