Dr Charlotte Paterson

Dr Charlotte Paterson is an an Honorary Senior Research Fellow, an experienced general practitioner and a practitioner of acupuncture and Chinese medicine . Her research interests include individualised outcome measures, complementary medicine and investigating how patients and acupuncture practitioners communicate within the consultation.She has developed individualised outcome questionnaires including Measure Yourself Medical Outcome Profile, MYMOP ( http://www.bris.ac.uk/primaryhealthcare/resources/mymop/ ) and has considerable experience of involvement of patients and the public in research teams. Charlotte has a keen interest in methodology and experience of both qualitative and quantitative methods, including qualitative synthesis using meta-ethnography. She works with colleagues in Australia and USA in the area of chronic pain, prescribed opioid use and how to improve communication between patients and practitioners.

Acupuncture has been a focus of her research for many years and this has included a randomised trial of traditional acupuncture for people with medically unexplained symptoms (the CACTUS study) and an ongoing programme of observational qualitative work investigating the acupuncture consultation (with The South West Acupuncture Research Group).

In 2021 she has initiated a new collaboration with The Northern College of Acupuncture where she will study and research Chinese Herbal Medicine. This treatment modality has received new recognition and interest in relation to treating Covid-19 infections and their long-term effects and is a fertile topic for future research.