Newcastle University

Qualifications

PhD. Medical Sociology: ‘Epistemological authority and hidden work: negotiated meaning in the conduct of a randomised controlled trial’, Newcastle University, (2009).

Master of Arts (Hons), Psychology, Second Class Honours, First Division (2:1): ‘Prostate Cancer and the Lives of Current Survivors: A Phenomenological Study’, Massey University, New Zealand, (2002).

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology, Massey University, New Zealand, (2000)

Previous Positions

2009- Research Associate, Institute of Health & Society

2006- Junior Research Associate, Institute of Health & Society

2002- Junior Research Associate, Centre for Health Services Research

Memberships

Membership and Graduate Basis for Registration (GBR) with the British Psychological Society.

Informal Interests

'Traditional' film-based photography using medium and large format cameras (landscape and portraiture)

Walking

Brewing ales and lager using traditional methods and 'raw' ingredients.

Research Interests

My research interests fall into two specific areas;

1) Diversity in the interests of clinicians, researchers and patient/lay groups, regarding the conceptualisation, development and implementation of new health care technologies for older people (from pre-retirement through to the older-old). In particular I am interested in the functional purpose of these differences, and how they are negotiated in practice across research settings and the clinical-research encounter.

2) I have an interest in the manner in which problems of health and social care are enacted within clinical interactions, the forms of knowledge that are drawn on to shape these interactions, and the way in which clinical practices and conditions are problematized and reconfigured by researchers situated outside the clinical encounter.

Combined, these interests lead to a central question: how are knowledge’s, identities and practices coordinated and negotiated in health and social care?

Other Expertise

Ethnographic Research, including participant observation.

Current Work

Currently I work as a Research Associate on two independent studies:

(a) The Food Standards Agency funded ‘Eating for Wellbeing in Care Homes’ study involves the application of ethnographic research to explore barriers and facilitators to the acceptance of the FSA guidelines in residential care. This work includes designing strategies to increase the acceptability of the guidelines amongst care home staff and clients as the research team enter new sites/homes.

(b) I am also working on a New Dynamics of Ageing funded study; MAPP−MAL: multidisciplinary approach to a prototype for the prevention of malnutrition in older people: products, places, people and procedures. My role in Mapp-Mal is to apply ethnographic methods to map the current system(s) of food provision for older patients in hospital, to explore the views of stakeholders, NHS staff and older persons’ representatives regarding malnutrition in hospital, and to facilitate the generation of ideas for potential solutions to this problem. Both studies involve collaboration with individuals from different disciplines. In Mappmal this includes: Dietetics, Food Science, Rheology, Gerontology, Product Design and Technology and Information Systems.

Research Roles

Recently I have joined a multidisciplinary team on the LiveWell programme, developing interventions to promote wellbeing amongst people entering retirement.

Postgraduate Supervision

Ethnography
Qualitative Research in clinical/medical settings

Esteem Indicators

Reviewer:
British Journal of Health Psychology 2007 & 2008
Implementation Science, 2008
Social Science & Medicine 2007

Projects

• Development of interventions to enhance health and wellbeing in later life (The LiveWell Project)
  Project Leader(s): Management team: Professor John Mathers (Lead investigator), Professor Martin White (co-investigator), Dr Thomas Meyer (co-investigator), Professor Paula Moynihan (co-investigator), Professor Lynn Rochester (co-investigator), Dr Falko Sniehotta (co-invest

Undergraduate Teaching

Course Tutor (2008): Undergraduate Module: Medicine in the community

• Heaven B, Bamford C, May CR, Moynihan P. Food work and feeding assistance on hospital wards. Sociology of Health and Illness 2013, (epub ahead of print).
• Bamford C, Heaven B, May CR, Moynihan P. Implementing nutrition guidelines for older people in residential care homes: a qualitative study using Normalization Process Theory. Implementation Science 2012, 7(1), 106.
• Heaven B. Bridging the Ontological Divide: Different Social Worlds in the Conduct of a Pilot Study. In: Will, C., Moreira, T, ed. Medical Proofs, Social Experiments: Clinical Trials in Shifting Contexts. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010, pp.39-47.
• Heaven B, Bamford C, May C, Moynihan P. When 30-40cms becomes a problem: Feeding, food-work and the space between patient and plate on hospital wards. In: Newcastle Human Nutrition Research Centre – research Day. 2010, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
• Heaven B, Bamford C, May C, Moynihan P. When 30-40cms becomes a problem: Feeding, food-work and the space between patient and plate on hospital wards. . In: British Sociological Association - Medical Sociology Conference. 2010, Durham University, UK.
• Rapley TJ, May C, Heaven B, Kay LJ, Foster H. Doing being a team: Multidisciplinarity-in-action in paediatric rheumatology consultations. In: British Association for Applied Linguistics - Cambridge University Press Seminar - Connecting Discourses: Academic and Professional Worlds. 2009, Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick.
• Rapley TJ, Heaven B, Bamford C, May C. How the logics of research make researchers a problem: The dynamics of interaction between epistemic communities. In: British Sociological Association: Medical Sociology Conference. 2009, University of Manchester, UK.
• Rapley TJ, Heaven B, Bamford C, May C. How the logics of research make researchers a problem: The dynamics of interaction between epistemic communities. In: Follow the conflict: Ethnography in fields of tension, ethnography as field of tension. 2009, Department of European Ethnology, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
• Bamford C, Heaven B, May C, Moynihan P. Implementing healthier menus in care homes for older people. In: Gerontological Society of America 62nd Annual Scientific Meeting. 2009, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
• Heaven B, Exley C, Finch T, May C. The participation of practice nurses in a randomised controlled trial: Managing intersecting trajectories of work. In: British Sociological Association: Medical Sociology Conference. 2009, University of Manchester, UK.
• Heaven B, Exley C, Finch T, May C. Instability, conflict and regaining epistemological control: An ethnographic account of a trial-team at work. In: British Sociological Association: Medical Sociology Conference. 2008, University of Sussex, Brighton.
• Heaven B, Exley C, Finch T, May C. Bridging the ontological divide: Different social worlds in the conduct of a randomised controlled trial. In: British Sociological Association: Medical Sociology Conference. 2006, Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.
• Rapley TJ, May CR, Heaven BRJ, Murtagh MJ, Graham RH, Kaner EFS, Thomson RG. Doctor-patient interaction in a randomised controlled trial of decision-support tools. Social Science & Medicine 2006, 62(9), 2267-2278.
• Heaven BRJ, Murtagh MJ, Rapley TJ, May CR, Graham RH, Kaner EFS, Thomson RG. Patients or research subjects? A qualitative study of participation in a randomised controlled trial of a complex intervention. Patient Education and Counseling 2006, 62(2), 260-270.
• May C, Rapley T, Moreira T, Finch T, Heaven B. Technogovernance: Evidence, subjectivity, and the clinical encounter in primary care medicine. Social Science and Medicine 2006, 62(4), 1022-1030.
• May C, Moreira T, Rapley T, Finch T, Heaven B. Hybrid Medicine: Technogovernance, subjectivity and primary care. In: Devices and Designs: Medical Innovation in Historical Perspective. 2003, University of Manchester, UK.
• C. May,B. Heaven,T. Moreira,T. Rapley,T. Williams. Hybrid medicine: technologies and subjects in primary care. Paper presented at CSSHM Summer Conference, Manchester, July 2003, "Innovating Medicine: Medical Technologies in Historical Perspective". 2003. .
• Rapley T, Finch T, May C, Moreira T, Heaven B. Hybrid medicines: technologies and subjects in primary care. In: BSA Medical Sociology Group: 35th Annual Conference Programme. 2003, Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Rapley T, Finch T, May C, Moreira T, Heaven B. Hybrid Medicines: Technologies And Subjects In Primary Care. In: British Sociological Association - Medical Sociology Conference. 2003, University of York, York, UK.
• Heaven BR, Murtagh MJ, Rapley T, Kaner EF, May CR, Thomson RG. You go and see a doctor at the surgery, not at research”: How 'patients' in an RCT understand themselves as experimental subjects. In: British Sociological Association Medical Sociology Conference. 2003, York, UK.
• Heaven B. Prostate cancer and the lives of current survivors: a qualitative study. In: 9th Annual New Zealand Health Psychology Conference. 2002, Sky Tower Auckland, New Zealand.