Miss Samantha Holmes

Samantha qualified as a speech and language pathologist in New Zealand in 2009. She began her clinical career in the NHS in 2010, working across many of the major London teaching hospitals and eventually specialising in head and neck cancer. Samantha is a research-active clinician with an interest in quality improvement and sustainable healthcare initiatives, and she has authored multiple publications and articles.

Samantha has been employed as the clinical lead for the head and neck cancer speech therapy service at Oxford University Hospitals since 2021. Alongside managing a small team, she works clinically across the entire head and neck cancer pathway, focusing upon the assessment and management of swallowing and communication difficulties secondary to the effects of cancer and its treatment. Samantha’s particular specialism is surgical voice restoration after laryngectomy, instrumental assessment of swallowing and preoperative counselling for major head and neck surgery.

Reason for applying for the scheme

Samantha is passionate about sustainable healthcare, and sees it as the part of her professional commitment as an allied health care professional to improve health outcomes for patients. This passion sits alongside her personal aim to engage with a sustainable, considered lifestyle for herself and her family. With a longstanding interest in clinical leadership and quality improvement, the opportunity to apply to the FMLM scheme was a logical step in achieving Samantha’s future ambitions for career development and making a meaningful contribution to the future of a Greener NHS.

Samantha is delighted to have been accepted onto the scheme, and to join the British Medical Journal (BMJ) as a clinical fellow. She hopes to gain increased insight into the vital role that the BMJ plays in shaping and influencing healthcare, particularly in relation to sustainability initiatives. She is looking forward to working collaboratively with a variety of industry leaders, to further developing her leadership skills as a national level, and to gain a greater understanding of how to embed sustainable principles into healthcare in order to take this knowledge back to her clinical specialism and drive change.