Dr Susie Pearce

I am an Associate Professor (Research) in Nursing at the University of Plymouth and Co-Director of the South West Clinical School  and Co Director of the Torbay and South Devon Clinical School 
I am foremost a qualitative researcher with specific interests in innovative methods, patient and professional experience, the understanding and development of cultures of compassionate, effective and safe care. I am involved in developing nurse led research both in practice and the university, linking research education and practice. I supervise Doctoral Students and teach on  qualitative methods and the end of life. 
Areas of current research include the developing and supporting nursing and multi -disciplinary workforce,  identifying the challenges  priorities for people living  at the end of life and those working with them, exploring  person centred  and quality of care in care homes.  Developing models for safe ICU nursing care. I have been leading a project across the  SW Region to develop a skilled research Workforce and  work to support the SW Clinical School across the Peninsular as a whole and with Torbay and South Devon in particular developing nursing strategy, workforce,  practice based research, innovation and development in practice. I am the Director of studies for a number of  health and social care professionals  who are doing their PhD part time whilst working in practice. 

I trained as a Registered Nurse with a BSc (hons) in Nursing Studies in 1993 at Kings College, London and went straight on to practice in cancer and palliative care. After working at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust I completed a MSc (Cancer Care) at the the Institute of Cancer Research, London. My BSc and MSc Dissertations explored fatigue with advanced cancer patients, and the experience of stress in cancer nurses using indepth qualitative methods. These were formative within career long passion of using innovative methods to fully understand the experience of patients, develop person centred care and to explore the impact of caring on professionals and its relationship to patients and the organisation.After being nurse researcher in palliative care at St Thomas' Hospital and Kings College, London I worked from 1997 at UCL Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust as a Clinical Nurse specialist for practice development and research in cancer care. This forged my passions for practice base research, critical social science and transforming practice through research, practice and strategic development. As Senior Nurse for Research and Development in 2001 I began a drive for developing nursing and midwifery research and research careers within health care. I have worked in Australia as a community nurse and a nurse researcher in palliative care at La Trobe University, and then strategic nursing roles transforming infection control practice, exploring the nursing voice and developing a transformative nursing strategy at a newly integrated CNWL NHS Foundation Trust, London in two period - 2002- 2004 and 2012-15. Between 2007-12 returned to UCL and UCLH in a NIHR Biomedical Research Centre funded role to develop Teenage and Young adult cancer applied health research locally and nationally and I developed, led, was a co applicant on a number of studies in this field. I was also involved in developing the Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Research at UCLH.   
I completed a part time PhD 'Renegotiating identity in young adults with cancer: A longitudinal narrative study' UCL in 2017. This was an interdisciplinary work situated within social science- using longitudinal visual and psycho-social methods to get beyond the surface of experience, to what is not always easily to tell. In 2016 I moved to Devon to my current role at the University of Plymouth and The SW Clinical School.

Nursing and Midwifery CouncilRoyal College of Nursing

Member of NIHR Research for Patient Benefit SW Committee 2018 to present

Member of the NIHR RfPB Nursing and Midwifery specialist panel 2023

Member NHIR/HEE SW Review Panel 2020 to present

Member of the Clinical Academic Research and Innovation Network

Member National Institute of Cancer Research Teenage and Young Adult Clinical Studies Group 2008–2014
Editorial Board Member for European Journal of Cancer Care 
Regular Reviewer – Cancer Nursing, EJON, EJCC, Pilot and feasibility,  IJNS, 

Module lead for End of Life and palliative care. I teach  qualitative research methods.
I supervise  a number of PhD students and welcome new students

My research interests include patient and professional experience, person centred care, palliative care and the end of life, care homes, multi professional team working, integrated care, later life,  young adulthood, biography, renegotiation of identity, emotional costs of illness and care. The development of cultures of compassionate, effective and safe care and how we can support and develop the nursing midwifery and ahp workforce. I am situated strongly within social science and I am primarily a qualitative researcher. This includes qualitative research within larger mixed method programmes of work and developing Innovative methods of practice and policy-based applied health research. 
Methods include: Longitudinal qualitative, visual, psycho-social, narrative, participatory and co-produced methods,  evaluation of complex interventions, realistic evaluation, and ethnography.

  

A strategic view of nursing research, clinical and academic partnerships. Cancer Nursing Institute Dukes University North Carolina July 2012

 3 day Invited International interdisciplinary seminar and workshop- on Narrative research as a method for understanding prospective social action- Copenhagen June 2019 – this led to a special edition in the IJSRM

ERASMUS Leuven Belgium April 2023 presentations and lead workshops on the Clinical School- clinical academic Model for NMAHP 

 

Florence Nightingale Foundation Research Fellowship 2011/2012/2013RCNi Award for Excellence in Cancer Research 2016