Katherine Bowden-Brown - National successes for AGE MRes Students

I’m Katherine, and I am currently a final year medical student at Newcastle University.  I was fortunate to undertake a research placement with the AGE Research Group from February until July 2020 as part of my intercalated Masters in Research degree, in which I joined the team for the Muscle Ageing and Sarcopenia Study Lifecourse (MASS Lifecourse). With supervision from Richard Dodds and Avan Aihie Sayer, I explored the data looking at physical activity and muscle quantity and quality of participants for my dissertation.   

I have really enjoyed placements in Geriatric Medicine throughout my time at medical school, and this was a great opportunity to get involved in some of the research currently being undertaken to improve the health and healthcare of older people. It was fantastic to be involved in such a varied and welcoming team, and I learned a lot about the research process and about different aspects of geriatrics and ageing research! 

With some help and encouragement, I was able to use my experience to achieve even more.  I used some of the background reading I had done for my dissertation about physical activity and sarcopenia to write an essay entitled ‘Healthy Ageing, Physical Activity and Sarcopenia’ which I submitted for consideration to the British Geriatrics Society (BGS) Amulree Essay Prize. I was honoured to win this year’s prize! 

I also submitted an abstract on my MRes research to the BGS Autumn Meeting 2020 and was fortunate to be selected to present my poster in the prestigious President’s Round.

I’ve now returned to my clinical training and hope to stay in touch with the group in case there are opportunities to get involved with research again in the future.

Last modified: Wed, 04 May 2022 13:49:34 BST