Dr Caroline Kamau-Mitchell
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Overview
Overview
Highlights
Dr. Kamau-Mitchell is one of a small number of academics globally shaping the way that hospitals support the occupational health of medical doctors. Dr. Kamau-Mitchell co-authored a randomised-controlled trial of doctors which led to an intervention used by many NHS hospitals (e.g., the Royal Berkshire hospital, University Hospitals Birmingham, BARTS Health NHS Trust, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay, etc.) and the NHS Practitioner Health Programme, a confidential service for doctors and dentists in distress. She is passionate about translating research into practice and policy by engaging with the medical community and the United Kingdom's government. She has written reports for the United Kingdom's House of Lords’ committees which inspired Parliament to change relevant legislation, and she has influenced inquiries by the House of Lords, and House of Parliament, into occupational health issues.
Her research has been covered in national newspapers such as The Guardian, media such as the BBC, news within medicine, and her research regularly gets lots of tweets by doctors, ranking in the top 5% of outputs within Altmetrics rating of impact.
Dr. Kamau-Mitchell is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, and a member of Birkbeck's Centre for Medical Humanities. She leads Birkbeck's Brainstorming Grants Group, a learning programme for academics which she organises and delivers, featuring speakers who are global pioneers (e.g., winners of the Nobel Prize and fellows of the Royal Society). She has written in Nature, the highly prestigious journal ranked in the top 10 of all academic journals worldwide with millions of readers, and other high impact journals such as the British Medical Journal, and The Lancet Psychiatry.
She chaired a landmark conference in medicine and is collaborating with the Medical Schools Council, British Medical Association, Hospital Consultants and Specialists' Association, and the Doctors' Association to transform its recommendations into policy and support for medical students and doctors.
Administrative responsibilities
- Programme Director of the Professional Doctorate in Occupational Health, P & M
- Chair of the Undergraduate Exam Board
- Leader of Birkbeck's Brainstorming Grants Group
- Member of the BEI PGR Directors' Committee
- Member of Birkbeck's Academic Board
- Module Convenor of a module about mental disorders in occupational contexts (Psychopathology and Work)
- Module Convenor of a module about applied experimental psychology (Group Processes in Organizations)
Professional activities
Dr. Caroline Kamau-Mitchell is the Leader of Birkbeck's Brainstorming Grants Group, a College-wide learning programme for academics which she organises and features global pioneers such as Nobel Prize winners and fellows of the Royal Society.
She has given talks at many national and international conferences. She was invited to talk to oncologists about burnout at the CNS Bootcamp held at the University of Cambridge, 2018. She gave a talk at the global health conference at the University of Oxford, 2018; the 4th ICHWS conference in Vancouver, Canada, in 2014; the ACES conference in Hiroshima, Japan, 2015; the IACCP conference in Nagoya, Japan, 2016; and the I/O conference in Sydney, Australia, 2017.
She is a reviewer for prestigious journals such as JAMA Psychiatry, the Journal of Occupational Medicine and Toxicology, the Journal of Clinical Psychology, the Journal of Affective Disorders, Stress and Health, Psychiatry Research, Schizophrenia Research, and more.
She is dedicated to taking science to the public in monthly articles which have been read by over half a million people: the Science of Mental Health
Dr. Kamau-Mitchell chaired a landmark conference in medicine and is collaborating with the Medical Schools Council, British Medical Association, Hospital Consultants and Specialists' Association, and Doctors' Association to transform its recommendations into policy and support for medical students and doctors.
Professional memberships
Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine
Member of the British Psychological Society.
Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
Member of the Birkbeck Centre for Medical Humanities
ORCID
0000-0001-6968-0161 -
Research
Research
Research interests
- I research the causes and consequences of occupational distress experienced by medical doctors using large dataset studies, systematic reviews, meta-analyses and randomised-controlled trials.
- I am interested in interventions which improve medical training and practice. I also conduct research involving nurses and other health professionals, and occupational health research considering how mental and physical disorders relate to work. My current collaborators include doctors from internal medicine, family medicine, and other areas of clinical practice.
- I am interested in the translation of research into policy, practice, and legislation.
Research Centres and Institutes
- Academic, Centre for Medical Humanities
Research clusters and groups
- Leader, Birkbeck's Brainstorming Grants Group (an academic learning programme)
- Member, Quantitative Methods Research Group
Post doctoral staff
- Dr. Khalid Bin Waleed (cardiologist)
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Supervision
I am a doctoral (PhD) and Master's (MSc) research supervisor. My past PhD students include Dr. Asta Medisauskaite, a senior research fellow at UCL's medical school, Dr. Eduardo Dias, and Dr. Camelia Oancea, a machine learning engineer at Airbus Defence and Space. As principal supervisor, my current PhD and professional doctoral students are:
- Carolann Edwards OBE
- Chris Attoe
- Johanna Van Osch
- Humaira Anwer
- Lorraine Anderson-Cole
I also second supervise the following doctoral students:
- Anna Niemczewska
- Ioana Parry
- Krystle Thomas Vedat
My doctoral students research topics such as the occupational health of medical doctors and nurses, supporting doctors returning to work after sickness absence, distress among lawyers, and workplace factors relevant to patient care. I specialise in supervising doctoral research about occupational health in medicine and other professions, and Master's dissertations on various topics using quantitative methods.
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Kamau, Caroline and Lopes, B. (2023) Importance of occupational support for NHS patients with mental illness. Occupational Medicine ISSN 0962-7480.
- Jaijee, S.K. and Kamau-Mitchell, Caroline and Mikhail, G.W. and Hendry, C. (2021) Sexism experienced by consultant cardiologists in the United Kingdom. Heart 107 (11), pp. 895-901. ISSN 1355-6037.
- Medisauskaite, Asta and Kamau, Caroline (2019) Does occupational distress raise the risk of alcohol use, binge-eating, ill health and sleep problems among medical doctors? A UK cross-sectional study. BMJ Open 9 (5), pp. e027362. ISSN 2044-6055.
- Kamau, Caroline (2019) Five ways media training helped me to boost the impact of my research. Nature 567, pp. 425-426. ISSN 0028-0836.
- Medisauskaite, Asta and Kamau, Caroline (2019) Reducing burnout and anxiety among doctors: randomized controlled trial. Psychiatry Research 274, pp. 383-390. ISSN 0165-1781.
- Lopes, B. and Kamau, Caroline and Jaspal, R. (2018) Coping with perceived abusive supervision in the workplace: the role of paranoia. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 26 (7), ISSN 1548-0518.
- Lopes, B. and Kamau, Caroline and Jaspal, R. (2018) The roles of socioeconomic status, occupational health and job rank on the epidemiology of different psychiatric symptoms in a sample of UK workers. Community Mental Health Journal 55 (2), pp. 336-349. ISSN 0010-3853.
- Clements, A.J. and Kamau, Caroline (2018) Understanding students’ motivation towards proactive career behaviours through goal-setting theory and the job demands–resources model. Studies in Higher Education 43 (12), pp. 2279-2293. ISSN 0307-5079.
- Medisauskaite, Asta and Kamau, Caroline (2017) Prevalence of oncologists in distress: systematic review and meta-analysis. Psycho-Oncology 26 (11), pp. 1732-1740. ISSN 1099-1611.
- Kamau, Caroline (2017) Postpartum depression or psychosis and return to work. The Lancet Psychiatry 4 (2), pp. 96-97. ISSN 2215-0366.
- Kamau, Caroline (2017) Preparing patients with cancer who work and treatment responsiveness. BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care 7 (1), pp. 94-97. ISSN 2045-435X.
- Kamau, Caroline (2016) Vulnerability of emergency surgery to the working conditions of new doctors. Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons 98 (8), pp. 354-357. ISSN 1473-6357.
- Medisauskaite, A. and Kamau, Caroline (2016) Guiding trainee pediatricians about how to cope with grief. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics 37 (6), pp. 523-523. ISSN 0196-206X.
- Kamau, Caroline (2016) Is the NHS mental health service preparing clients to resume employment?. Psychiatric Services 67 (5), pp. 578-579. ISSN 1075-2730.
- Kamau, Caroline (2016) Corespondence: Is the NHS Mental Health Service preparing clients to resume employment?. Psychiatric Services 67 (5), pp. 578-579. ISSN 1075-2730.
- Kamau, Caroline and Spong, A. (2015) A student teamwork induction protocol. Studies in Higher Education 40 (7), pp. 1273-1290. ISSN 0307-5079.
- Medisauskaite, A. and Kamau, Caroline (2015) Are we preparing GP trainees for patient death?. British Journal of General Practice 65 (634), pp. 248. ISSN 0960-1643.
- Kamau, Caroline (2015) Should clinical experience be a precondition for a job in NHS management?. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 108 (4), pp. 120-121. ISSN 0141-0768.
- Kamau, Caroline and Medisauskaite, A. and Lopes, B. (2015) Inductions buffer nurses’ job stress, health and organizational commitment. Archives of Environmental and Occupational Health 70 (6), ISSN 1933-8244.
- Kamau, Caroline (2014) Outcomes of care programme approach, dual diagnosis, carer support and psychological therapy inductions. Psychiatric Bulletin 38 (4), pp. 172-174. ISSN 2053-4868.
- Kamau, Caroline (2014) Effects of experimental inductions for newly qualified doctors on competence at clinical procedures. Clinical Medicine 14 (4), pp. 380-385. ISSN 1470-2118.
- Kamau, Caroline and Medisauskaite, A. and Lopes, B. (2014) Orientations can avert psychosocial risks to palliative staff. Psycho-Oncology 23 (6), pp. 716-718. ISSN 1099-1611.
- Kamau, Caroline (2014) Systematic review of new medics’ clinical task experience by country. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Open 5 (5), ISSN 0141-0768.
- Kamau, Caroline (2014) Effects of shadowing and supervised on-the-job inductions on mental health nurses. Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing 21 (4), pp. 379-382. ISSN 1351-0126.
- Kamau, Caroline (2014) Systematic review of new medics' clinical task experience by country. JRSM Open 5 (5), ISSN 2054-2704.
- Kamau, Caroline (2013) What does being initiated severely into a group do? The role of rewards. International Journal of Psychology 48 (3), pp. 399-406. ISSN 0020-7594.
- Kamau, Caroline and Giner-Sorolla, R. and Zebel, S. (2013) Reconciliation responses, blame and expressions of guilt or shame. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 43 (S2), pp. E287-E292. ISSN 0021-9029.
- Kamau, Caroline (2013) A conversation with Professor Sir Simon Wessely. Wessex Psychologist Bulletin (8),
- Spong, A. and Kamau, Caroline (2012) Cross-cultural impression management: a cultural knowledge audit model. Journal of International Education in Business 5 (1), pp. 22-36. ISSN 2046-469X.
- Giner-Sorolla, R. and Kamau, Caroline and Castano, E. (2010) Guilt and shame through recipients’ eyes: the moderating effect of blame. Social Psychology 41 (2), pp. 88-92. ISSN 1864-9335.
Book
- Oancea, Camelia and Kamau, Caroline (2020) Organizational Psychology of mergers and acquisitions. Taylor & Francis / Routledge. ISBN 9781315747156.
- Berry, D. and Kamau, Caroline (2013) Public policy and media organization. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ISBN 9781409402756.
- Berry, D. and Kamau, Caroline (2013) Public policy and media organizations. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 9781409402756.
Book Section
- Kamau, Caroline (2012) On Erich Fromm: why he left the Frankfurt school. In: Berry, D. (ed.) Revisiting the Frankfurt School: Essays on Culture, Media and Theory. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. pp. 185-206. ISBN 9781409411802.
- Kamau, Caroline (2009) Strategising impression management in corporations: cultural knowledge as capital. In: Harorimana, D. (ed.) Cultural Implications of Knowledge Sharing, Management and Transfer: Identifying Competitive Advantage. Advances in Knowledge Acquisition, Transfer, and Management (AKATM) Book Series. Hershey, U.S.: Information Science Reference (IGI). pp. 60-83. ISBN 9781605667904.
Conference Item
- Kamau, Caroline (2022) Eradicating sexism and sexual harassment in medicine conference. Eradicating Sexism and Sexual Harassment in Medicine Conference, 2022, Online
- Oancea, C. and Kamau, Caroline (2014) Mergers and acquisitions: category salience in crossed-categorization contexts. Division of Occupational Psychology Annual Conference, 2014, Brighton
Letter
- Kamau, Caroline and Lopes, B. (2023) Mental illness and unemployment-related mortality. Lancet Psychiatry 10 (8), pp. 583-584. Elsevier. ISSN 2215-0366.
- Kamau, Caroline (2021) GPs need awareness about post-covid ME/CFS. British Medical Journal 374, BMJ Publishing Group. ISSN 0959-8146.
Monograph
- Kamau, Caroline (2022) How pesticides, social isolation and other factors raise the risk of stress and mental disorders among farmers – review of scientific evidence. UK Parliament.
- Kamau, Caroline (2022) Report FGP0388 for the UK Parliament Health and Social Care Committee. London, UK: UK Parliament.
- Kamau-Mitchell, Caroline (2022) On the Competition Act 1998 (Health Services for Patients in England) (Coronavirus) (Public Policy Exclusion) Order 2022 (SI 2022/124). London, UK: House of Lords.
- Kamau, Caroline (2021) Risk of debilitating fatigue after covid-19 lasting years and implications for the UK workforce: evidence report for the House of Lords Select Committee on Risk Assessment and Risk Planning. House of Lords Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee Publications UK Parliament.
- McDowall, Almuth and Teoh, Kevin and Stringer, Mark and Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, Uracha and Beauregard, T. Alexandra and MacKenzie Davey, Kate and Lewis, Rachel and Yarker, Jo and Kamau, Caroline (2020) Organisations, race and trauma. London, UK: Department of Organizational Psychology.
Teaching Resource
- Kamau, Caroline and Spong, A. (2013) Student induction tools: Group contract and group log.
Video
- Kamau, Caroline (2020) How organizations can manage employees' fear during COVID-19. Birkbeck, University of London.
External Repositories
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Business and community
Business and community
Outreach
I am passionate about engaging with the United Kingdom's House of Lords, the House of Parliament, associations for medical doctors, and end-users of my research. See the "highlights" page for details.