Pauline started her nursing career in Gloucestershire qualifying in 1984. She has worked clinically in trauma orthopaedics, surgery and intensive care nursing. Her academic interests revolve around health care ethics and professional practice gaining a masters degree in medical ethics in 1991 with a specific focus on life and death decision making. Pauline has always had a passion for education and took up post in 1991 as a registered nurse tutor at the United Midlands College of Education. She has a wealth of experience in curriculum design development and delivery across pre and post registration programmes with a specific expertise in placement learning, clinical skill development and clinical assessment.

Following the move of nurse education into HE she was instrumental in establishing the first fully funded practice placement facilitator roles and developing robust partnership working frameworks to facilitate placement learning. Since moving to Keele University in June 2007 Pauline has provided dynamic leadership to the team and has took up her current role as Head of School in September 2010. Her recent focus has been around the student experience and in particular attrition and retention and she was a member of the DH national group looking at managing student attrition during 2009.