Dr Kathryn Ehrich
Kathryn Ehrich joined PSSQ in July 2010 as a Research Fellow in the Innovations Programme. Her previous research has encompassed patient safety and service quality topics, for example through her work for the Neale, Ayling, and Kerr/Haslam Inquiries, and her PhD on the introduction of GP cooperatives using telephone triage for out of hours primary care, and the impact of these for parents of children under five.
In two recent studies in the King’s Centre for Biomedicine & Society she has focused on social, moral and ethical issues for parents and healthcare professionals that arise in reproductive and genetics services; the social study of bioethics, science and technology in healthcare; and the construction of ethical value in the reproductive technology / preimplantation genetic diagnosis / stem cell research interface. For more details of these studies see Ethical frameworks for embryo donation and Facilitating choice, framing choice: experiences of staff working in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. At PSSQ she is continuing her research interest in social studies of science, clinical innovation, and socio-cultural factors in healthcare organisations that impact on safety and quality.
Kathryn’s qualifications include: BA Social Science (Westminster); MSc Medical Sociology (Royal Holloway College, London; and PhD in Sociology & Anthropology (Brunel). Following her MSc, she joined the Institute of Psychiatry and worked for five years on Medical Research Council funded studies of early childhood deprivation and adult psycho-social sequelae, in the Child & Adolescent Unit, headed by Professor Sir Michael Rutter, including a study of the experiences of English families adopting children from Romania. She then took up an NHS R&D Research Training Fellowship to go to Brunel University where she completed her PhD study, an ethnography of one of the first GP out of hours cooperatives, which incorporated observations and interviews with health care staff, parents and children. In subsequent research and consultancy, funded by the Wellcome Trust, Department of Health, NHS and ESRC, she has worked on a variety of projects relating to children’s health and parenting; the views, practice and cultures of healthcare professionals; healthcare policy; and social science approaches to social and ethical issues in reproductive and genetic technologies.
Selected previous projects:
Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme: Ethical frameworks for embryo donation
Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Programme: Facilitating choice, framing choice: experiences of staff working in pre-implantation genetic diagnosis
Department of Health, The Three Inquiries Secretariat: Research, drafting and seminar planning, and Rapporteur for expert seminars, for the independent inquiries (Kerr/Haslam) into how the NHS handled allegations about medical practitioner performance and conduct
Wellcome Trust Value in People Award: Development of sociological/anthropological research on organisational factors in patient safety in maternity services
Department of Health: Provision of evidence for Children’s National Service Framework Ill Child Module
Department of Health: Copying Letters to Patients: Commissioning and Co-ordination of Pilot Projects
NHS R&D Service Delivery & Organisation Programme: Continuity of Care Scoping Exercise
NHS R&D Research Training Fellowship: A Case for Dialogic Practice: A Reconceptualisation of ‘Inappropriate’ Demand for and Organisation of Out of Hours General Practice Services for Children Under Five
Publications:
Scott, R. Williams, C. Ehrich, K. Farsides, B. (in press) "Donation of `Spare' Fresh or Frozen Embryos to Research - Part 1: Who Says an Embryo is `Spare'? 'Donation of `Spare' Fresh or Frozen Embryos to Research - Part 2: Enhancing the Quality of Consent and Protecting Reproductive Futures". Medical Law Review.
Ehrich, K. Williams, C. Farsides, B (2011) Fresh or frozen? Classifying ‘spare’ embryos for donation to hESC research. Social Science & Medicine 71(12): 2204-2211. PubMed
Ehrich, K. Farsides, B., Williams, C., Scott, R., (2011) Constructing an ethical framework for embryo donation to research: is it time for a restricted consent policy?Human Fertility 14:2, 115-121. PubMed
Ehrich, K. Williams, C., Farsides, B., Scott, R. (2011) Embryo futures and stem cell research: The management of informed uncertainty. Sociology of Health & Illness Aug 3. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9566.2011.01367.x. Epub ahead of print. PubMed
Harvey, O. Ehrich, K. (2011) Can the embryo `speak'?: Material agency in the laboratory and the clinic. Eä: Journal of Medical Humanities & Social Studies of Science and Technology Vol. 2:3 April [online journal http://www.ea-journal.com]
Ehrich, K., Williams, C., Farsides, B. (2010) Fresh or frozen? Classifying ‘spare’ embryos for donation to hESC research. Social Science & Medicine. 71 (12): 2204-2211. Available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.09.045
Ehrich, K. Williams, C., Farsides, B. (2010) Consenting Futures: Professional views on social, clinical and ethical aspects of information feedback to embryo donors in human embryonic stem cell research. Clinical Ethics. 5(1): 77–85.
Ehrich, K. & Williams, C. (2010) A ‘Healthy Baby’: The double imperative of preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Health, 14(1) 41–56.
Prainsack, B., Svendsen, M. N., Koch, L., Ehrich, K. (2010) Workshop Report: How do we collaborate? Social science researchers' experience of multidisciplinarity in biomedical settings. BioSocieties 5(2): 278-286
Williams, C. Wainwright, S.P. Ehrich, K. & Michael, M. (2008) Human embryos as boundary objects? Some reflections on the biomedical worlds of embryonic stem cells and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis. New Genetics & Society 27 7-18.
Ehrich, K. Williams, C. & Farsides, B. (2008) The embryo as moral work object: PGD/IVF staff views and experiences. Sociology of Health & Illness 30 772-787..
Ehrich, K. Farsides, B. Williams, C. & Scott, R. (2007) Testing the embryo, testing the fetus. Clinical Ethics 4 181-186.
Ehrich, K., Williams, C., Farsides, B., Sandall, J & Scott, R. (2007) Choosing embryos: Ethical complexity and relational autonomy in staff accounts of PGD. Sociology of Health & Illness 29 1091-1106.
Scott, R. Williams, C. Ehrich, K. & Farsides, B. (2007) The appropriate extent of PGD: health professionals’ views on the requirement for a ‘significant risk of a serious genetic condition'. Medical Law Review 15(3) 320-356.
Williams, C. Ehrich, K. Farsides, B. & Scott, R. (2007) Facilitating choice, framing choice: staff views on widening the scope of PGD in the UK. Social Science & Medicine 65 1094-1105.
Ehrich, K., Williams, C., Scott, R., Sandall, J., & Farsides, B. (2006) Social welfare, genetic welfare? Boundary work in the IVF/PGD clinic. Social Science & Medicine 63: 1213-1224.
Ehrich, K. (2006) Telling cultures: ‘cultural’ issues for staff reporting concerns about colleagues in the UK National Health Service. Sociology of Health & Illness 28:7: 21-44.
Ehrich, K. (2003) Reconceptualising “inappropriateness”: researching multiple moral positions in demand for primary health care. Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine, 7: 109-126.
Humphrey, C. Ehrich, K. Kelly, B., Sandall, J. Redfern, S. Morgan, M. & Guest, D. (2003) Human resources policies and continuity of care. Journal of Health Organization & Management 17: 102-121.
Ehrich, K., Freeman, G.K., Shepperd, S., Robinson, I., & Richards S.C., (2002) How to do a scoping exercise: Continuity of Care. Research Policy and Planning 20: 25-29.
As a member of the English And Romanian Adoptees Study Team, Institute of Psychiatry, University of London
Beckett, C., Bredenkamp, D., Castle, J., Groothues, C., and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1999) ‘The Role of Social Workers in Inter-Country Adoption: an Analysis of the Experience of Adopters from Romania’, Adoption and Fostering, Volume 23, No., 4, pp. 15-25.
Castle, J., Groothues, C., Bredenkamp, D., Beckett, C., O’Connor, TG., Rutter, M. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1999) ‘Effects of Qualities of Early Institutional Care on Cognitive Attainment’, American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 69:424-437.
O’Connor, T.G., Bredenkamp, D., Rutter, M. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1999) ‘Attachment Disturbances and Disorders in Children Exposed to Early Severe Deprivation’, Infant Mental Health Journal 20:10-29.
Rutter, M., Andersen-Wood, L., Beckett, C., Bredenkamp, D., Castle, J., Groothues, C., Kreppner, J., Keaveney, L., Lord, C., O’Connor, TG. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1999) ‘Quasi-Autistic Patterns following Global Privation’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry Volume 40, No. 4, pp 537-549.
Beckett, C., Groothues, C., O’Connor, TG. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1998) ‘Adopting from Romania: The Role of Siblings in Adjustment’, Adoption and Fostering 22:25-34.
Groothues, C., Beckett, C., O’Connor, T.G. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1998) ‘The Outcomes of Adoptions from Romania: Predictors of Parental Satisfaction’, Adoption and Fostering 2:30-40.
Rutter., M. and the English and Romanian Adoptees Study Team (1998) ‘Developmental Catch-up and Deficit following Adoption after Severe Global Early Privation’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 39:465-476
