Dan Middleton

Current Employer/Organisation Name

NHS Devon Partnership Trust

What have you been doing since leaving Exeter, and what are you doing now?

Working towards a clinical psychology career. I have had three Assistant Psych posts and a Clinical Research Assistant Post researching the use of psychedelics for mental health diagnosis as well as Alzheimer, dementia treatment research.

Why did you choose this career? And what do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy supporting vulnerable individuals as an AP. I enjoyed researching novel pharmaceutical approaches as a research assistant as I was working in Gold standard research studies with top professors and MDTs in Oxford.

Please tell us if you were a member of any societies, groups or sports clubs?

Contemporary Choir.

What did you enjoy most about your programme and what was the biggest highlight?

Dr Sally Palmer as supervisor.

What did you most enjoy about studying here?

Exeter is a nice place and the Uni was great.

Why did you choose to study at Exeter?

I’m Cornish, so it was close to home.

What skills and experiences have been most useful for your career?

I actually did particularly poorly on my clinical psych module due to family circumstances. Dr Palmer was very supportive which I enjoyed and used wisely.

In regards to being a clinical psych or Assistant Psych the course gave me the BPS graduate membership. That was really it in regards to helping being a clinical psychologist.

What advice would you give to a current student who wishes to pursue your career?

There were students asking for support with clinical psychology routes on the conversion course, which is not part of the course, so students need to know that it isn’t a clinical Masters. I worked part time as a health care assistant across multiple NHS wards and made a huge effort to contact psychologists to understand the field more. I also volunteered with the university’s CEDAR team to understand how they apply research across the NHS. So my message is you need experience and you need to find it yourself. Be brave and reach out – especially if you want to get a role as an assistant psychologist. But that’s across the spectrum of psychology roles. For example I would have contacted sports psychology doctors and health psychology or educational psychology and sat down with them if that was the route I wanted to go down.

What are your plans for the future?

Take a year out and then possibly apply for Clinical training again.