James Sheppard

I am a lecturer at the University of Oxford in the department of Primary Care and I do research into how GP’s look after older people - particularly older people with high blood pressure who may be at risk of heart attacks and strokes.

I lead the Stratified TreAtments Research (STAR) Group which uses data from routine electronic health records to better understand the association between treatment and harms. Our work uses prognostic modelling techniques to predict those patients who are most likely to benefit and those most likely to suffer harm from these treatments. 

My previous work has involved developing a clinical prediction tool for PRedicting Out-of-OFfice Blood Pressure (PROOF-BP) to enable targeting of ambulatory blood pressure monitoring in primary care. I teach on the Evidence Based Medicine MSc degree programme.

James talks about:

• Pattern recognition, big picture thinking and coding in his current work. 

• Writing his name with letters backwards as a child

• Thinking he would never be able to learn to read age 11 when reading age was 3-4 behind what it should have been at that stage.

• Strength in writing clearly and the challenge of bedtime stories

Please follow the link to the interview.

“I remember in year 9 and 10 not wanting to read out loud in class because everyone would take the piss out of me for not being able to read it properly- I remember really struggling with Shakespeare - just impossible to read, even now I think I would struggle to read it. I think my parents may have explicitly written to the school not to single me out in class to read passages in class because it was too embarrassing and the kids weren't very forgiving in my school.”

“Interestingly, the thing I get complimented on most in my work is actually my writing [...] which is funny because you'd think it would be the worst thing that I do [...] Every paper that I write is basically writing a short story”