Leah Rachel
Leah spent a total of six years in university-academia.
Three of those as an undergraduate; and then the final three were as a postgraduate researcher in the Doctoral School of Royal Holloway University of London, specialising in Medical Ethics.
Her research is still being used in academia and in the medical field today.
Her Undergraduate dissertation was an opening enquiry to the way that the opioid crisis impacted chronic pain patients. Her postgraduate research thesis followed on from this, as an exploration of the impact the opioid crisis, and the harm done to chronic pain patients collateral damage.
She completed her undergraduate degree from 2017 to 2020 as a BA (Hons) Philosophy (2:1) with her honours dissertation titled "What are the Ethical Implications of the Harm Done to Chronic Pain Patients by the Withholding of Opioids, as a Consequence of the Opioid Crisis?" (1st). During her time as an undergraduate, she also had six articles about disability published on 'The Mighty' (all available to read from the 'resources' page. She was also awarded the certificate of academic excellence upon graduation.
Between undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, she also obtained a qualification from an online course created by Harvard Medical School, titled "The Opioid Crisis", in preparation for undertaking her Research Masters.
She achieved her 'MRes' (Masters of Arts in Philosophy by Research) in Medical Ethics in 2023, with a 40,000 word postgraduate-research thesis titled "Withholding Relief: Why chronic pain patients deserve a quality of life, and how it became unimportant in the collateral damage of the opioid crisis".Both her undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations are available to read as PDF's on the 'resources' page, and Leah's undergraduate dissertation is available in the library of her former university.
Leah considers her biggest accomplishment during her time in the Doctoral School as being when she created a new 'chronic pain scale' to replace the old-school system of 'label your pain is between 1-10'. The concept of a 1-10 scale is entirely subjective to each patient, particularly when asked to a patient who experiences levels of daily pain that most people only experience in emergency situations; and it also gives no information about the qualities or the source of the pain, itself - and therefore no valuable information as to alleviating it effectively.
Dubbed the "Leah Pain Scale" by the patients who use the scale to help them communicate their pain, and lecturers to tell me they use it as a resource in their classes, many of whom still contact Leah annually to mark it's creation (something that Leah finds incredibly moving, and is especially grateful for): her pain scale has since been taken on by multiple pain teams in the UK; has been used as part of a curriculum at multiple universities, colleges, and med schools across multiple continents; and has reached well-over 18,000 patients to support their pain care.
PDF's of this alternative pain scale for chronic pain patients can be found available to download in both a high-contrast version, and 'low-ink' more printer-friendly version, on the 'resources' page of this website. Since its creation, Leah has always made it free to use so long as it remains credited to her work, and is not used in a published work that charges any money. This scale was always made to help as many people as possible, and should not have a financial barrier to be accessed.
The resources page can be accessed from the main menu, or from the button directly below.