Joseph Ologunja

Fellowship Bio

GP Specialty Trainee and NHS Fellow in Clinical AI (Cohort 4). Co-investigator on the AIRES study at Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust. Incoming East Midlands Fellow. Speaker, researcher, and advocate for diverse voices in clinical AI.

Fellowship Project

Breast cancer treatment with chemotherapy can damage the heart. NHS guidelines require patients to have repeated heart scans throughout chemotherapy to detect early signs of damage, which will help patients receive treatment and often continue their cancer therapy. The problem is that standard echocardiograms have real limitations: image quality varies, results can be inconsistent, and when scans are inconclusive, patients are referred for cardiac MRI, which is accurate but expensive, time-consuming, and in short supply across the NHS. AIRES evaluates two AI-powered tools; Ventripoint VMS+™, which reconstructs a 3D model of the heart from a standard 2D scan using spatial sensors, and Ligence Heart, which uses deep learning to automatically measure heart function. Both are tested against cardiac MRI as the gold standard in 120 breast cancer patients, with serial scans at baseline and at 3, 6, 9 and 12 months. As co-investigator, I supported protocol development, coordinated ethics and HRA approval, recruited clinical collaborators, and established the data collection pathway. I also conducted a trust-wide AI literacy survey and contributed to ambient voice technology rollout, building the implementation evidence base alongside the clinical study. Milestones achieved: ethics and HRA approval obtained; clinical contributors recruited; recruitment pathway ready. First patients expected July/August 2026. A BMJ Open protocol paper is in preparation.

Fellowship Testimonial

Coming from an engineering background, I initially assumed this fellowship would mirror a traditional tech track: writing code, building products, and working in standard cross-functional teams. Instead, it broadened my perspective beyond product design to the reality of deployment. In the NHS, powerful AI tools are ready, but the true challenge lies in navigating research governance, protocol refinement, and clinical safety. As clinicians, we must take ownership of how these tools are integrated and monitored. The highlight was not any single milestone, but the accumulation of them. Getting ethics approval after months of protocol refinement. Standing on a stage at Black AI UK talking about what this moment means for Black professionals in medicine. Finishing second at a national clinical AI hackathon with a team who built something genuinely useful for junior doctors in a single day. Surveying staff across the trust and finding that expectation of AI dramatically outpaces understanding of it told me something important: the bottleneck to AI adoption in the NHS is not technology but its people, culture, and education. That insight will shape everything I do next. The fellowship gave me a bird’s-eye view of the full product lifecycle, from initial design to end-user adoption. That credibility has opened immediate doors: in September, I join the East Midlands Fellowship with a focus on AI process optimisation, alongside conversations regarding a Clinical Safety Officer role in primary care. To future fellows: the year will be messier and slower than you expect, especially around governance. That is fine. The relationships, the skills, and the perspective you build along the way are the real output.