Sally is a Lecturer, Teaching and Learning for Health Professionals and the Co-Director MSc Reproduction and Development. Sally has many years experience in teaching health professionals, of qualitative research, writing for publication and journal reviewing/editing. She supervises about 10 MSc student projects a year, plus one Doctoral student in Dental Studies and two PhDs (registered at another university).
Research Areas: Infant feeding, education research methods, inclusivity in assessment
What was your first role or job as an educator?
Associate Lecturer with the Open University
What inspired you to become an educator and/or education researcher?
An interest in influencing the learning journeys of others, particular adult and part-time learners, after my own academic career did not proceed in a conventional fashion.
What is your current medical education research project on?
My PhD and subsequent research has been about infant feeding but currently I’m working more on using my skills and experience in medical education research; particular interests are teaching research methods in medical education and inclusivity in assessment. I’m currently co-leading, with Dr Nicola Rooney, a BiLT Associate Project. With a team from across the University we working on ‘Designing for all: Inclusive assessment’.
What would you consider your greatest academic success?
Completing my PhD aged 50!
What book are you reading at the moment?
‘Eve’ by Cat Bohannon, described by the Guardian as ‘a long overdue evolutionary account of women and their bodies’
What challenges have you faced in your journey as a medical education researcher and how have you overcome these?
Getting your work published can be a big challenge for researchers at all levels. I am very interested in supporting others to publish and have been running a series of “Writing for Publication” workshops during the past year.
What three top tips would you give to new medical education researchers?
- Keep trying!
- Be resilient (everyone gets rejected sometimes)
- Collaborate – get in touch with me if you are interested in collaborating on projects involving qualitative methods, qualitative evidence synthesis or scoping reviews.
Where is your favourite place in the world and why?
Appledore, North Devon – I love watching the water changing in the estuary and pottering around on the quayside