‘You must be honest about your capabilities and decide early on what your niche is’

What is the Occupational Psychology Outlook?

'It launched last year and you can find a lot of detail and the first edition on the Division of Occupational Psychology section of the Society website. The idea is that it should build a bridge between occupational psychology practice and research and, in particular, provide a forum for early career researchers – to help new authors get into print.'

There are quite a large number of peer-reviewed psychology publications available internationally; why another one? 'The Division reviewed what was available and identified a gap, particularly for a forum appealing to beginning authors and researchers, especially as publishing with us can be counted towards CPD. We will offer help in writing through a peer review process. Another important aspect is that it will publish work by authors who are not occupational psychologists; it offers a bridge to other Divisions and many other professions. As long as a piece is relevant to occupational psychology, we will consider it. This should help in the effort to break down barriers and create a rich mix of views.'

Given what you've said, is there a sense that occupational psychology is less evidence-based than it should be? I've heard that said. 'It's definitely a debate that continues and there's room for progress, as there is in most applied social sciences. One of the aims of the Occupational Psychology Outlook is to show how evidence- and ethics-based applied psychology is. These aspects are emphasised in training but we want to strengthen their influence on practice.'

This view mirrored comments made by employers and commissioners of occupational psychologists during the course of my interviews for The Psychologist. The two aspects of psychologists' work they mentioned most commonly were their insistence on identifying evidence for a course of action and the fact that they have, perhaps, a more robust code of ethics than some other professions.

I asked how the publication was progressing. 'We're establishing the editorial board. The first issue came out in December and the second issue will be out by the time this interview is published. It's now included in the Society's Explore service and the first issue has been well-received.'

'Occupational Psychology is such a diverse subject'

Pirashanthie's career in medical education, with its emphasis on ethics, evidence, and cooperation between different disciplines, shows what a good fit her role in the new publication is. 'Perhaps I was naïve in starting to study psychology; thinking it would help me understand the people around me better. I studied at the University of Ulster. At the time, there was no career guidance but it was clear to me that I wanted to work in universities rather than the clinical route.'

Pirashanthie received a scholarship for a PhD which investigated how people with visual impairment negotiated built environments – a joint project with civil engineers. 'I enjoyed it, it had some practical applications in modelling but it was very experimental. I wanted my work to have more practical implications and I moved to medical education in Keele. This marked a real change and plenty of people warned me against the move, saying, "You're leaving psychology and going into medical education which isn't a real discipline." I did a post-doc which was about blending multi-media resources into teaching the examination of joints such as shoulders and knees.'

This led to Pirashanthie's continuing interest in multi-media and gamification approaches. 'These sorts of approaches are important in medical education. They provide experience of events that trainee medics might miss during placements and provide learning in a safe environment. There are also real ethical issues about training involving live patients. It's worth stressing that nurse training also made significant advances in this field but they weren't as much in the limelight as medics. I was involved in a Royal College of Surgeons-funded project developing resources which addressed common complications post-surgery. You need big teams of different sorts of people to get something like this right, which makes it expensive and time-consuming. Recent advances in technology have helped with this somewhat.' Because of these factors, Pirashanthie hasn't worked on a similar project for some time. The Surgical Games website gives an example of this sort of work. Multi-media/games-based approaches can enrich wider psychological assessment; in areas such as leadership and decision-making for instance.

Pirashanthie became an occupational psychologist by taking the full Society qualification, 'which I did at weekends over years, between other work; this juggling of work, family and further training was very challenging'. She has now worked in Sheffield for well over 17 years and initially focused on contributing to the development of undergraduate medicine programmes. Apart from the Professorial and other roles we've mentioned, she now has a number of other roles; external examiner; a member of the Society's education and training board; and lead for professionalism and patient safety on the Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of  Surgery (MBChB) qualification. Her work influences how future doctors are trained, the content of those training courses and the teachers/trainers themselves.

'Occupational psychology is such a diverse subject, and it's important to communicate this effectively to others. It covers areas from assessment, change, well-being and ethics to quality improvement and human factors. All future doctors are now trained in leadership, for instance, an area I'm very involved in. I came late to the subject of medical ethics and the law. This centres on the tension between how one ought to act and how one actually does behave because of systemic and environmental pressures. This is central to patient safety. All psychologists face this tension and I and others are applying it in a very specific environment for another group.'

I asked her if it was easy to get accepted as a psychologist in a medical environment. 'In general, psychologists struggle to communicate the subject's weight and values. For instance, many people think they know what they're talking about in areas like motivation. There is a growing acceptance that in trying to deliver a complex training programme which is impacted by political, social, or economic pressures you need a multi-disciplinary team. As a psychologist you must be honest about your capabilities and decide early on what your niche is; what you can contribute and what you can't.'

What does the future hold for her? 'I'd like to study more moral philosophy to inform my work in medical ethics. And then I want to develop more links between occupational psychology and medical education. In many ways, the editorship of the Occupational Psychology Outlook fits in perfectly with these interests. We're aiming to increase its impact factor and create a high-quality test bed for new authors.'