I joined the BHPMS in April 2008 to support and
broaden the delivery of the Masters course in Medical Education and associated
programmes. I have been a teacher for twenty five years working across a range
of settings including schools (where I trained originally), adult, further and
higher education. These have all been highly formative experiences although
working with long-sentence prisoners was particularly challenging.
During the
last ten years I have been increasingly involved with teacher training for
colleges and higher education entering medical education in 2005 as an
educationalist with the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in London. There was a strong focus on course
delivery at RCP although an increasing amount of this activity was abroad
including workshops with doctors and dentists from the Middle East, Sudan and Singapore.
In 2007 I travelled to Amman to run a workshop jointly organised by RCP and the British Council to run a ‘Train the Trainer’ programme for doctors from Iraq. Prior to joining BHPMS I worked on educational development in Cardiff University’s School of Dentistry.
Much of my wider educational experience has been working with students who have
struggled within the school system but who wanted to make a fresh start at
sixteen. This has often included older students who were changing direction or
wanting to improve their qualifications.
I moved from further to higher
education in 2000 with a Senior Lectureship at the University of Huddersfield
where I worked with students who wished to teach in Further Education (FE)
colleges, sixth-form colleges and in vocational training. Some these audiences
were highly specialised including students from the Police and Fire Services in
West Yorkshire. Undertaking teaching
observations in a ‘smoke room’ in full breathing apparatus or in the back of a
police car doing 160 mph gave a new meaning to reflecting on practice.
On leaving Huddersfield I joined the Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD) where I led the PG Certificate in Teaching in Higher Education and undertook wider internal and external educational activity.
My research interests focus on the ‘socialisation’ of teachers into higher education and the related processes of identity formation and acquisition of teaching skills. The focus for this activity is an EdD that I am undertaking in the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. In the past I have contributed to books on higher education in further education and the relationships between risk, culture and education.
With three children and an old house to ‘freshen up’ I have little spare time but I grow vegetables, work as a volunteer for a wildlife trust and have re-discovered the joys of auctions.
