How I learned to code

And the impact I've had in academia as a result.

This is the second in a series of posts, where I talk about my career, how I got to where I am now, and where I want to go in the future.

After I finished my PhD I started working as a postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, where I manage and lead the research program for the Burns Registry of Australia and New Zealand (or BRANZ).

The BRANZ is a big database that collects information about patients that present to specialist burn services across the two countries. We use this data for research, but also to inform prevention and educational activities in order to reduce the number of people who get burned, but also to help provide consistent, high quality care for people who are admitted to hospital with a burn. We have data on over 40,000 patients who have been admitted to hospital over a 15 year period, so there are plenty of numbers to crunch.

Coming into the role I knew nothing about burns, and even less about how to code. And when I say code, I mean writing commands in programs like R, Stata, or Python to work with data - filtering, grouping, mutating, and the like.

But after attending a few introductory courses and a lot of trial and error I mastered the basics, and have since gone from strength to strength in being able to handle and analyse data, create clear and compelling visualisations, and automate the production of routine reports.

During my time at the BRANZ I have collaborated with national and international experts in burn care from a variety of disciplines, including former Australian of the Year Professor Fiona Wood, to lead the planning, data analysis, and writing of more than 25 manuscripts – working on multiple projects simultaneously – in leading international journals.

The team has experienced a three-fold increase in the number of outputs produced each year as a direct result of my data analysis and organisational skills.

Our findings and recommendations have also resulted in changes to policy and clinical practice – resulting in fewer people getting burned and better, more consistent outcomes for the ones that do.

Specifically, our research into bathroom scalds from taps and showers, undertaken in collaboration with the Australian Building Codes Board and the New Zealand Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment resulted in changes to the Plumbing Code of Australia in 2022 regarding tap fixture design and installation in bath and shower recesses.

These changes prevent people from accidentally knocking or grabbing the hot water tap and burning themselves.

In addition, our work into the use of venous thromboembolism prophylaxis (drugs that stop people from getting blood clots, which are common after burn injuries), resulted in the Victorian Adult Burns Service changing the way in which they give patients these drugs (i.e., how much and how often).

Since the statewide adult burns service changed their protocols, there have been fewer drug-related complications, fewer blood clots, and fewer deaths in burns patients.

I’m at a point where I want to take the impact I’m having in academia and apply it to something else I really care about - sport. If you want to chat about how I can deliver this kind of impact for your organisation, drop me a line here.