Allowing the Topol Fellowship project to become what it needs to be

When Sherryl Chatfield, Clinical Specialist Neuromuscular Physiotherapist, talks about her Topol Fellowship project, she’s quick to say that it’s still in progress.

The work itself, exploring remote monitoring for people with peripheral neuropathy, matters deeply. But what stands out most is not just what she is building, but how the Fellowship has reshaped the way she approaches complex work.

Over the last year, Sherryl describes being on several learning curves at once: stepping into the role of Chief Investigator, navigating academic clinical research, and building confidence in digital and project delivery. Rather than sitting neatly apart, those strands have increasingly overlapped, shaping how Sherryl thinks, plans, and makes decisions.

From a big idea to something manageable

When Sherryl first applied for the Topol Fellowship, she had a clear vision, a very clear and ambitious vision, like many clinicians moving into research and digital projects, the initial scope was large, very large.

"One of the biggest learnings," she reflects, "was scaling the project down to something manageable, something feasible that can then be built on."

But let’s be certain, this wasn’t about lowering ambition, it was about recognising that meaningful change often starts small. Breaking the work into achievable stages made the project less overwhelming and allowed it to evolve through evidence, feedback, and learning, rather than being locked into early assumptions.

That approach began to echo agile ways of working, introduced in the first of TPXimpacts Human Centred Design modules: starting with something small, learning quickly, and building iteratively, even within the slower, more deliberate rhythms of academic research.

Seeing impact from more than one angle

Another key shift for Sherryl came through the Fellowship’s second TPXimpact module focussing on impact measurement and featuring the Theory of Change model. Previously, Sherryl would have assessed feasibility largely through a clinical lens, the Fellowship encouraged her to step back and consider impact more broadly.

Rather than focusing only on clinical outcome measures, her project now also considers usability and acceptability for participants, qualitative insight through focus groups, clinical time required to set patients up and review data, and comparisons with usual care to understand workload and time implications.

"It helped me think about feasibility from everyone’s point of view," she explains. "Not just clinically, but operationally and from the patient experience as well."

That broader framing strengthened the protocol itself and helped ensure the project could demonstrate value in ways that matter across the system.

Staying anchored while allowing change

Throughout the project, Sherryl has held onto a clear research question, not as a constraint, but as an anchor, while the project has evolved significantly, it has never drifted away from the core problem it set out to address.

This proved particularly important when engaging with technology suppliers, speaking to multiple companies, and drawing on learning from the digital and the Guys and St Thomas AI sessions, Sherryl became clearer about what she needed, and what she didn’t.

"It’s very easy to be blinded by the tech," she says. "At one point, I nearly went in a different direction, but that would have turned the project into training the AI, rather than answering my research question."

Instead, she chose a partner willing to work with her: iterating on the protocol, responding to clinical needs, and respecting the research goals. The technology supports the problem, not the other way around.

The value of slowing down

Perhaps the most personal learning Sherryl describes is around pace. As a self-confessed "doer", she is used to moving quickly from task to task, the Fellowship created something rare in clinical life: protected time to think.

"That permission to step back has been huge," she reflects. "Not just to do the work, but to think it through properly."

While the project has taken longer than Sherryl initially hoped, that slower pace has enabled deeper reflection. Looking back, she can now see how much groundwork has already been laid, protocols written, ethics navigated, stakeholders engaged, even though the work doesn’t yet feel "finished".

It’s a reframing many Fellows recognise: progress doesn’t only count at the end.

Advice she’d give her past self

If she could offer one piece of advice to herself at the start of the Fellowship, Sherryl doesn’t hesitate: be patient.

"Things take time. Going through the process properly really matters," she says. She also emphasises the importance of looking beyond familiar circles – seeking out different mentors, perspectives, and sources of advice along the way.

For Sherryl, the Topol Fellowship has been as much about learning how to work as what to work on. Allowing the project to grow into what it needs to be, rather than forcing it to match an early idea, has been a defining part of that journey, and one she will carry far beyond this project.

If you are interested in Sherryl’s Fellowship experience or project contact her on [email protected]