Biography

I qualified as a Registered Nurse in 1984 from St.Thomas’ Hospital in London, gaining their Honours award. Following professional registration I worked as a staff nurse in acute care and then completed the ENB100 Intensive Care Nursing qualification at Westminster Hospital in London, gaining their Distinction award. I gained my first teaching and assessing qualification, the ENB 998, in order to work as a nurse mentor. In order to enhance my understanding of many aspects of nursing, I completed a BSc(Hons) in Psychology and Social Biology in 1991, while working part-time. 

I have provided critical and intensive nursing care to patients for over 25 years, working my way up into senior clinical and teaching roles, predominately in London based NHS hospitals but also within an independent sector specialist cardiac surgery unit. I also worked as an Anti-Coagulant Nurse Practitioner within the busy West Middlesex University Hospital in London before moving with my family to live in Surrey in 2000. 

During my career I increasingly enjoyed the teaching aspects of my roles and so I completed my Masters level teaching qualification and became a Practice Educator in Critical Care. I joined the University of Surrey as a Tutor in 2003, gained a University of Surrey Teaching and Learning Award in 2006, and was promoted to Senior Tutor in 2008. In 2012 I completed a PhD that identified a new Grounded Theory to explain student nurse socialisation in compassionate practice.

Research Interests

Publications

Publications, Papers and Presentations:

• Curtis, K., Horton, K. and Smith, P. (2012) Student Nurse Socialisation in Compassionate Practice: a Grounded Theory Study.  Nurse Education Today, 32(7), pp.790-795.
• Curtis, K. (2012) Keep Compassion Alive. Nursing Standard, 26(44), pp.64.
• Presented a paper titled: Nursing’s Got Talent, at the NETNEP 2012 conference in Baltimore, USA in June 2012
• Presented a paper titled:  An Iterative Journey using Grounded Theory within the 2011/12 post-graduate students seminar series at the University of Surrey
• Presented a paper titled: The student Experience of Compassionate Care, at the NET2011 conference in Cambridge in 2010
• Presented a paper titled: Using formative OSCE with peer feedback to develop physical assessment and consultation skills, at RCN International Education Conference (Brighton 2007)
• FSDLT research project with £18,000 funding (July 2006 – August 2007) titled: The use of formative OSCE using peer feedback
• Designed and led OSCE workshop with £500 HEA funding, titled: Creative Applications of OSCE in Health Professional Education in 2006
• Presented a paper titled: The development of Masters Level OSCE at the RCN Nurse Practitioner Conference (University of Bath in 2004)

Teaching

I teach across academic levels on many programmes and modules within professional preparation programmes and within the continued professional development provision of the School of Health and Social Care.  My particular areas of interest are within acute and critical care nursing, professionalism, research methods, and human anatomy and physiology for health and applied healthcare.  I have developed new approaches to teaching and learning and have contributed to the design of new curricula across several health disciplines.  I supervise undergraduate and post graduate dissertations.  I am also a Personal Tutor to student nurses, providing pastoral support and personal and professional development advice.

Departmental Duties