Katrina Turner is Professor of Primary Care Research, Head of the Centre for Academic Primary Care and Head of Section for Applied Health Research at Bristol Medical School. In this Q&A, she reflects on what it takes to succeed as a female academic and shares insights from her own personal journey to professorship at one of the world’s leading Universities.
It would be great if you could start by saying a bit about what you do and what attracted you to working in academia.
I’m a primary care scientist with expertise in qualitative research methods. I’ve got particular expertise in intervention development and integrating qualitative studies within randomised controlled trials to improve their design and delivery, and to aid the interpretation of trial findings. Most of my research has been in the area of primary care mental health.
I never really had a plan to become an academic. I always thought I would do something in the health field, but something a bit more hands on like physiotherapy or occupational therapy. To be honest, I wasn’t particularly academic at school. There were a couple of subjects I excelled in and I loved but, it sounds funny now, there were times I didn’t think I’d get to university.
I did my first degree in Aberdeen. I did health sciences because I thought it would give me a good base for a career that was health focused. I then travelled for a year, unsure of whether I would study again. I ended up coming back to do an MSc in Edinburgh in health education and health promotion. I did that because, in those days, I had this grand idea that I might work for an organisation like VSO or Médecins sans Frontières, and that the MSc might help me achieve that.
It was while I was doing the MSc that someone said to me: “You’re really good at research.” I’d done a dissertation for my undergraduate degree and I did a dissertation for the MSc. And I thought, yeah, I really love it. Someone then encouraged me to apply for a PhD studentship at Stirling University, which was attached to a Medical Research Council trial about sex education in schools.
I got the studentship and ended up doing a PhD on teenage pregnancy. From there I went into research. So it was never really planned. It was never my intention. I never viewed myself as an academic.
You’ve recently been giving a series of talks about succeeding as a female academic. Why did you feel the need to talk about this?
First, I should say that I don’t feel quite comfortable with that title because I think we all have different definitions of success, and what might look like success on paper doesn’t always feel like that.
So, the first time I did this talk was just before the [COVID-19] pandemic. The National School [NIHR School for Primary Care Research] asked me if I would like to deliver a talk on this theme. I don’t know why they asked me but I suspect it was because I’m quite unusual as a Head of Department, in that I’m not a clinician, I’m a woman, I don’t lead big trials and I do qualitative research. At the time, I was also a single parent and worked part-time.
I remember thinking, what should I say, and how should I deliver this talk? And in the end I decided just to be very open and base it on my own experiences and what’s helped me.
I talked about things such as knowing who I am and defining what I do, believing the people who believed in me more than I did myself, and trusting them when they said “go for it, do it”. And I remember giving the talk and being quite overwhelmed by the response at the end. Both men and women came up to me, saying how great it was to hear such an honest talk, and how it had made them think and re-evaluate a few things.
Last year I trained as a Certified Woman’s Coach and, as I’ve learned more and read more, I’ve added more to the talk, but the main points, based on my own experiences, are still there, and people seem to really appreciate the honesty.
Another thing I talk about is how there are no superheroes. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Everyone’s trying to work things out as they go along – what is the best way of doing this? – and there’s no one way.
In your view, what are the particular challenges that women in academia face?
The research shows that overall, compared to men, women in academia earn less, are more likely to work part-time, and are less likely to go for the big grants or the high impact journals.
Research also shows that sometimes women are overlooked for senior positions. Although women make up roughly about 50% of the academic workforce, only about 23% of professors are women.
There may be lots of reasons behind these figures. Women often have more caring responsibilities than men. I think women sometimes lack confidence. We also know that a woman who is openly ambitious, confident or strategic may be viewed quite differently from a man who is those things. I also think women often carry quite a lot of what we call the ‘emotional load’. So I think it’s sometimes harder for women to progress because of their situations, and because of what is seen as acceptable, and what we tell ourselves as well.
I also think women sometimes find it hard to be boundaried, or to prioritise their needs, or to step into an energy where they’ve got the confidence to walk into a room and say, this is my vision, this is what I’m thinking.
There are other groups, of course, who might face similar challenges, for example, people from global majority backgrounds or younger people. So I’m not saying that all of these issues are necessarily particular to women.
Are there any signs that things are improving for women?
Yes, I would say, they are. I see more senior women around. I think we have more conversations around issues such as the gender pay gap and the need to encourage women to go for promotion.
At Bristol Medical School, we actively encourage everyone who’s ready to go for promotion to go for it. But we are also aware that women have a tendency to delay, so we may need to encourage female colleagues a bit more. Our promotion process also places greater emphasis on the quality of the work that you do rather than just the quantity, which I think helps. And also we have initiatives like the Athena Swan Charter, which aims to support and transform gender equality in higher education.
So, I think it is changing. I think we’ve still got a way to go, but it is definitely changing. I also think it depends on what area you work in within academia, and where you work. I do feel very lucky to be at Bristol, where there is a genuine commitment to supporting women in academia. We also have female academics in very senior and highly visible roles, including our current Vice Chancellor, the Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences and the Head of Bristol Medical School.
What has helped you succeed in your own career?
I’ve been lucky! I was massively lucky to be moved on to core funding about 10 years ago. The likelihood of people being put onto core funding is far less now, no matter how outstanding or excellent the candidate. Having the stability of core funding has enabled me to take on roles that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to, like taking on the leadership of CAPC [the Centre for Academic Primary Care]. If I had always had to chase grant funding in order to sustain my employment, I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to do that.
Also, I genuinely love what I do. I’ve always worked in quite hard areas of research, such as on drug addiction, sex workers, and end-of-life-care, and now anxiety, depression and psychosis. I am no longer going out, collecting data, but when I did, I always felt in such a privileged position, to have people share their views and experiences with me, to trust me with their stories and personal views.
Doing that research enabled me to elicit voices of people who might not otherwise have a voice, and then to describe and disseminate findings in ways that would hopefully inform service delivery or practice and, ideally, in the long term, help them and others in similar situations. I genuinely love the idea of doing research that improves lives, and even though I am no longer going out gathering data, I still feel very committed to doing that.
I’ve also worked with lots of amazing people. That has helped my career, in terms of enabling me to successfully deliver impactful research, but also because enjoying the colleagues I have worked with has kept me motivated and interested in research.
What advice would you give to women who are starting out in their careers?
I’m aware not everyone has a choice about what work they do, and I am particularly aware that in academia with all the short-term contracts, individuals often have to apply for posts which they might not be particularly interested in but need to keep them employed.
What I tell my son is, work is a huge part of your life and you only have one life, so if possible, do something that you really enjoy and that fits with your values and strengths. These might change over time but set out to do something you will enjoy and are motivated to do well. We often tell people what we do and how we do it, but we rarely say why we do it. You’ve got to have your why because that’s where your motivation comes from. That’s a sustainable way of working. So do something you love.
Early in your career, it can help to say yes to every opportunity and to network hard. Accept invitations and take up opportunities to meet and connect with others as much as possible. Also, have the confidence to ‘leap and then learn’. I think the research also shows that men tend to leap and then learn on the job. I think women feel they need to know everything before they leap.
Have a growth mindset. Always be learning and developing skills and build a team both at home and at work. You can’t do it all. Women are very holistic beings. If we’re unhappy in our work life, it will affect our home life and vice versa. So have a good home and work team around you, if you can.
I think most successful women usually have a team behind them. Your home team might be family and friends or others who can help, for example with household tasks or childcare. At work you might have supportive colleagues, a coach, a mentor, a champion or a great line manager.
And what about women who might be further along in their careers and may be hitting some kind of barrier or feeling stuck in some way?
I think that’s where seeking help from a coach or a mentor can be really helpful. That said, Tara Mohr’s written a brilliant book called Playing Big in which she talks about accessing and trusting your inner knowledge. We can often be focused on managing our inner critic and neglect our inner knowledge, which can be a great resource if we take the time to stop and listen to what it is telling us.
So I think it is helpful to go out there and seek advice from others but I also think sometimes you need a ‘meet with me’ to pause and think, what am I doing, why am I doing it, what can I stop doing, and what should I continue or start doing.
In the training that I did to qualify as a coach, there was a big emphasis on meeting your own needs, your basic needs, which might be physiological, like having water, food, sleep and shelter, as well as other needs you feel are important to prioritise.
For me, I need to see my friends and family regularly. I need to exercise and be out in nature. A lot of us aren’t meeting even our basic needs but the reality is, if you can’t be there for yourself, you can’t be there for others. The best decisions I’ve made were made when I felt in a good place and felt strong, not when I was exhausted and felt like I was firefighting, saying yes to everything because I was too exhausted to think and say no.
And there’s this lovely thing that I’ve learned about in the coaching as well: every now and again do something that stretches you a little. I think we can get into a comfort zone and our confidence can go a bit as that happens.
I’m learning to do front crawl at the moment because I don’t like putting my face in water and I’ve always wanted to do front crawl. I also wanted to learn a new skill. That was one of my intentions for this year. I can now do 30 lengths and I’m loving it! Learning a new skill has made me feel more confident in myself.
What would you like to do next? And what are your plans for the future?
In terms of work, I’m really keen to use my coaching qualification to support colleagues. I did the coaching training because I felt I needed more tools in my toolbox as a leader. I see people becoming demotivated, burning out, dropping out. The coaching I did is particularly around supporting women and trying to find new ways of working that are sustainable.
In terms of my research, I want to make the most of the fact that I’ve worked across lots of trials. I’ve started doing some work around usual care comparators. Usual care can massively vary for the same condition and between different sites and different practitioners but if you’re comparing an intervention against it, within a trial, you want it to be constant or at least know what that usual care includes. So, I’ve done some work around that, a methodology review and systematic review, looking at what usual care is and what might inform the content of usual care. I’d like to take that work forward.
In terms of my personal life, I got married last year and it feels like I’m starting a new chapter that I wasn’t expecting, which is really lovely. It feels a bit of a gift. I want to travel. I want to do long walks. I want to revisit hobbies and start new ones. I am also aware that when my son leaves home in a few years, with that change, there’ll be another transition, which will hopefully bring another set of opportunities and experiences.
Any final thoughts, on this International Women’s Day?
We are living in a world where there are still huge gender inequalities, where power, influence, and rewards of all kinds, including cultural rewards, are still heavily weighted towards men. So, sadly, I think there is still a long way to go into terms of gender equality and women’s rights, and in some countries, at the moment, it feels as if we have gone backwards.
I hope days such as International Women’s Day highlight what still needs to be done to improve the lives of women globally, as well as celebrate how far we have come. I also find hope in the fact that when women come together, it can be extraordinary. Women are capable of great emotional and social intelligence. When women support each other, champion each other, it can be incredibly powerful.