Thread by @mentorshipzim

Hello 👋🏾

My name is Chido Dziva Chikwari (@chidodc) and I will be tweeting from this page today.

I’ve dedicated most of the day and I am really excited to engage with everyone. I’ll try my best to answer any questions people may have.

I’ll be using this thread throughout 😊

I am an Epidemiologist.

I am currently working for the Biomedical Research and Training Institute in Zimbabwe as a Study Coordinator for the CHIEDZA Trial.

I also completed my PhD in Epidemiology with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine this year.

I’ve decided to structure the day in two parts:

Part 1: I’ll share about my Educational Journey from Undergraduate to PhD

Part 2: I’ll share about my Work Experience doing Health Research in Zimbabwe.

If there is more you’d like me to share on please comment below 😊

Part 1 Education

I did my primary & secondary education in Zim but I left soon after high school to do my undergraduate degree in Biomedical Science with Business at the University of Newcastle in the UK.

I really enjoyed studying & living in Newcastle! 😊

Graduation day 👇🏾

My motivators for choosing Biomedical Science with Business were:

1) I enjoyed Biology

2) I knew I didn’t want to be a medical doctor but wasn’t sure what I wanted to be so this was a compromise and

3) My parents run their own businesses and I guess I was inspired by that.

I know the question of scholarships always comes up and as a disclaimer I don’t have much experience in applying for scholarships.

For Undergrad I had a part scholarship from my University and the rest was self funded which was very expensive & difficult with the Zim economy.

When I finished my degree I knew I wanted to come back home and work here. I knew I didn’t want to work in a laboratory but wanted more people interaction in all the work I did. Against all advice to stay in the UK I followed my heart came back to Zimbabwe soon after graduation.

At this point; I do not regret coming back to Zim. I have been very fortunate in the sense that against all odds, somehow, things worked out 😊

I knocked on a lot of doors then eventually met the right people at the right time & the opportunities I needed presented themselves.

I do want to say though that we all have our unique individual journeys. A lot about each & every one of us is very different & that’s okay. Today I’m sharing my story which is unique to Chido. While we can learn from others figuring things out & mapping your way is personal.

After coming back I got a job & started working (see Part 2). Soon afterwards I started my Masters in Epidemiology with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) via distance learning. This meant I didn’t have to leave Zim. I could work & study at the same time.

I absolutely loved my distance learning masters. I highly recommend this route for anyone who is working & wants to do a masters at their own pace.

I had up to 5 years to complete the masters and could choose how many modules I wanted to take up each year.

When I finished the MSc my boss had secured funding for a really exciting research project & wanted me to run it. Because it was already funded & I was already going to run the project this was a perfect opportunity to carve out a PhD and so that’s how I started my PhD in 2017.

One can say I ended up doing a PhD by accident 😅 It came with the job.

My PhD was also with LSHTM which is a collaborating institution with BRTI here in Zim. I secured reduced fees for both my MSc and PhD through the LSHTM-BRTI Capacity Strengthening Research Degree Scheme 🙌🏾

I have shared more about this MSc - PhD journey on the University of London blog and you can access that article from 2017 here:

london.ac.uk/london-connect…

This will feed into work experience later but first let’s talk about doing a PhD….

A PhD is hard work. I think the 3 things that made it bearable for me were:
1. My supervisors were supportive & present
2. Working on research I was passionate about
3. Not worrying about funding

If considering a PhD these are 3 things to take seriously before you start.

Again PhDs are often a solo journey. You tend to work at your own pace & chances are you’re working on a research topic where there are few others doing the same thing. It’s easy to feel isolated.

If you have PhD related questions please feel free to ask in the comments below 😊

PhDs not all doom and gloom though. There are things I really enjoyed:

1. Working independently on something that’s wholly mine
2. Travelling ana speaking at conferences (pre-Covid)
3. Writing papers & seeing them published. I did my PhD by publication and
4. Finishing it 😂

I’ll stop here for Part 1.

Part 2 (Work Experience) below…

I work primarily in health research linked with developing and evaluating interventions to
1.Improve HIV testing and treatment for children and adolescents and
2.Improving Sexual and Reproductive Health Services access and uptake for young people

I have worked on a number of different projects which have led to WHO guideline changes & programmatic changes for HIV services for children and adolescents.

3 three key projects I’d like to highlight are:
- The ZENITH Trial
- The B-GAP Project (my PhD)
- The CHIEDZA Trial

You can read more about most of these projects here: lshtm.ac.uk/research/centr…

So the big question is probably, “As an Epidemiologist, what exactly do you do?”

I’ll answer this and link it my current role as a Study Coordinator for the CHIEDZA trial:

A typical day in the work life of Chido…

I spend a lot of time in meetings and responding to emails. A lot of my work is actually “group work”. There is a lot of communication & collaboration with so many people. This often about planning & coordination of project activities, problem solving and strategy development.

I spend a lot of time writing.
I write:
1.Grant applications: money to do research
2.Ethics Applications: permission to do research
3. Study Protocols: to spell out what the study will do
4.Papers: to share your study findings - This is really important!

Most of the papers that I have written (in collaboration with others) can be found here:

google.co.uk/amp/s/www.rese…

I also spend a lot of time doing site visits. These are largely dependent on the setting we are working in and can include clinics/hospitals, youth centres or even households in community settings. For CHIEDZA a site visit means seeing young people + my amazing team 👇🏾

One of the things I am really passionate about & spend a lot of time doing is mentoring young people. Outside work I mentor a group of young people in Mbare who run community projects. As part of my work I coordinate & mentor young people as part of our Youth Researchers Academy

I’ve seen this said on this platform several times but I’ll stress it again: We each have sometime to give.

Mentorship is one way to give & once you find someone to pour into you will be amazed at how much you have to share.

I am product of mentorship by some amazing women!

You can see and read more about our ongoing Youth Researchers Academy where we are actively mentoring young people who want to get involved with Research here:

chiedza.co.zw/youth-research…

So I’ve come to the end of the heavily summarised version of my journey thus far. I’m still figuring out next steps career wise. There’s a number of different ways things could go but it’s been a great journey this far & I’m really excited about what the future has in store 😊

I’ll stay online for the next hour to answer any questions.

If you want to keep following my story, my Twitter handle is @chidodc. I post a lot about my work & about my son 😅

Thank you all for engaging 🙏🏾

It has been an interesting day of reflection for me 😊

*We each have something to give