Tracey Parkin

Academic profile

Dr Tracey Parkin

Associate Professor
School of Health Professions (Faculty of Health)

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The Global Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. Tracey's work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

Goal 03: SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-beingGoal 04: SDG 4 - Quality Education

About Tracey

I enjoy working with the dietetic team to ensure that we deliver quality programmes. I was a key developer of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for dietetic students, this has become an established  method for assessing practical skills in dietetic students prior to practice based learning (Parkin & Collinson, 2019). I am actively involved in supporting IPE within the dietetic programmes to support better patient care and collegiate working. I lead the 'dietetics in practice module in year 3, and 'psychosocial aspects of patient centred care ' in year 1. I support the development of communication and behaviour change skills across all years of the dietetic programmes. I am particularly interested in supporting the development of empathic communication skills. I am the programme lead for the MSc in Advanced Professional Practice in Dietetics, a role that allows me to work closely with clinical dietitians to support the development of their critical apprasial and research skills. In addition, to regularly  supervising UG, masters and PhD students.  I maintain an active role in delivering clinical supervisory skills training to practice educators across the southwest and in researching and developing education to support competency in skill attainment when communicating for behaviour change. In addition, research into self-care management , through structured education programmes and effective consulting skills and development and  maintenance of these skills in dietetic students is ongoing. More recently, I have been focusing on motivation to support behaviour change and have been working closely with psychologists using functional imagery training (FIT) to support weight management. FIT has been shown to be 5 times more effective than motivational interviewing in supporting weight loss (Solbrig et al, 2019). 

 

Supervised Research Degrees

Linda Solbrig: PhD  Functional Imagery Training, a novel, theory-based motivational intervention for weight-loss (2018)

Rachel Medd : MRes “Parent perspectives on interactions with speech and language therapists: what facilitates engagement” Supervisor (2019)

Sarah Greene: PhD Design and implementation of group based functional imagery training for weight loss (2024) 

Munira Khan:PhD Co-producing healthcare guidance for children and young people with ataxia telangiectasia (A-T) including the exploration and deisgn of a home-based complex intervention (2025)

 

 

Teaching

I teach undergraduate and postgraduate students 

I cover a range of dietetic areas, my specialist areas are:

  • diabetes / weight management
  • communication skills/behaviour change.
  • empathy / motivation
  • self-care management / patient education

I teach communication and behaviour change skills to students with a focus on supporting self-care management of patients. This is delivered to undergraduate students across all years of the dietetic programmes and to other postgraduate healthcare professionals. I am interested in the health psychology underpinng behaviour change, motivation and self-care. I support  supervisory skills training in masters students as well as supporting delivry of  education in this area to practice educators across the South West.

 

Contact Tracey

InterCity Place, Plymouth Railway Station, North Road East,, Plymouth, PL4 6AB
+44 1752 588827