Meet our Clinical Fellows

In September we welcomed two clinical fellows to support our work to improve maternity safety in England, Dr Chris McQiuitty and Dr Ricia Gwenter.

Our clinical fellows have been supporting a number of projects designed to analyse thematic findings from our investigations as well as supporting us to develop new approaches to our work.

Meet Dr Chris McQuitty

“I’m Chris, I am a GP trainee in my final year of training, and I’ve been working as a doctor for about 10 years in a variety of specialties including emergency medicine, intensive care, anesthetics and medicine.

I joined MNSI as part of the National Medical Director’s Fellowship. The Fellowship is organised by the Faculty of Medical Leadership and Management and seeks to empower healthcare professionals to develop leadership skills that they can use in their future roles within the NHS. As part of this, I’m working on several projects within MNSI including assessing organisational culture and using AI to aid thematic learning.

Since starting at MNSI I have found the process to identify human factors that affect clinical outcomes very interesting. This is an area that I don’t have much experience in, despite its relevance to my previous acute and critical care roles I’ve had in the past. It’s a highly relevant area and I hope I can use what I’ve learnt at MNSI in my future roles.

The most enjoyable thing about my role at MNSI is being given the opportunity to work on wider scale projects that have the potential to add significant value to the programme. I have met many people who have been kind enough to share their knowledge and experience with me, which has in turn helped me understand and address issues. I hope that during my year at MNSI I can produce tools that will support MNSI to continue delivering high quality investigations that improve clinical care.”

Meet Dr Ricia Gwenter

“I am a gastroenterology and general internal medicine speciality registrar based in Wessex. Like Chris, I am working with MNSI as part of the National Medical Director’s Clinical Fellow Scheme, which offers resident doctors the unique opportunity to spend a year within a national healthcare organisation.

Over the past few months with MNSI, I’ve had my first real exposure to patient safety investigations in healthcare, particularly in the context of maternal illness. Drawing on my medical background, I’ve been contributing to the thematic analysis work from maternal death investigations. This work has been an eye-opening experience, highlighting the significant medical challenges that some women face during pregnancy. It has also been a sobering reminder of the health inequalities that persist and the tragic consequences they can have.

With maternal death rates rising, the need for action is greater than ever. A quote that has resonated with me this year is, “healthcare errors are often a symptom of a system’s illness.” This encapsulates the importance of addressing systemic issues to improve patient outcomes.

The most rewarding part of my role at MNSI so far has been the opportunity to expand upon the learning from our investigations, and in turn help inform the national strategy to improve maternity safety for the future.”