Fanuel Bickton has completed his MSc programme at UCL with a distinction. His thesis explored barriers and enablers to pulmonary rehabilitation in low- and middle-income countries – it also scored a distinction. A manuscript for publication from the thesis was recently deposited on the Research Square’s platform at https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1034007/v1 as a preprint and is currently undergoing formal peer review for publication consideration in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
Fanuel Bickton, a physiotherapist, joined Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome in 2019 as a CORE MLW-CoM Pre-MSc intern in the Lung Health Research Group. Under the supervision of the Group’s Lead, Dr. Jamie Rylance, and Dr. Enock Chisati (Senior Lecturer at KUHeS), Fanuel developed his research ideas during the internship, within the field of pulmonary rehabilitation. His published internship project was a systematic review of pulmonary rehabilitation in Southern Africa. This had given him a competitive edge for MSc application.
In 2020, Fanuel Bickton was awarded the prestigious 30-months NIHR–Wellcome International Master’s Fellowship to undertake a taught Master of Science (MSc) in Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy at the University College London (UCL) in the United Kingdom (UK), supervised by Dr. Harriet Shannon.
Fanuel Bickton spent twelve months at UCL and is now back at MLW working on his Fellowship project, “A single-centre mixed-methods pre-post single-arm feasibility trial of a culturally appropriate six-week pulmonary rehabilitation programme among adults with functionally limiting chronic respiratory symptoms in Malawi” under the supervision of Dr. Rylance and Dr. Chisati. Fanuel Bickton’s work focuses on developing, testing, and implementing a culturally appropriate pulmonary rehabilitation programme among adults with functionally limiting chronic respiratory symptoms in Malawi.
“The Fellowship has allowed me to be trained in a field I am passionate about at an internationally recognized academic centre of excellence. I have developed networks with experts in Cardiorespiratory Physiotherapy which will serve as a platform for sharing expertise in the field and expanding my professional horizons. Through this course, I have gained skills in combating non-communicable diseases that I will use here in Malawi through rehabilitation interventions that are based on locally derived research evidence. The expertise gained is so invaluable,” said Fanuel Bickton.
You have made us proud Fanuel!
