Dr Fiona Meth, Associate Professor

Profile

I have a background in social science and research and prior to commencing my Nursing Degree I worked as a research Assistant at London School of Economics and Queen Mary University of London, as well as Shelter, the homelessness charity. It was this that sparked my interest in health as I was working on a number of projects that related to housing, health inequalities and homelessness. Since qualifying in Nursing, I have worked in a number of roles in Leeds and Bradford. I have worked in Critical Care – general and neurological. I have also had roles as an Infection Control Nurse, Research Nurse, Cardiac Community Rehabilitation Nurse in Bradford, and several operational roes within Leeds teaching Hospitals Trust including working in Corporate Nursing / Chief Nurse CSU around workforce development, quality assurance, and as a Practice Learning Facilitator.

Prior to moving to Leeds University in 2022 and commencing the role of Director of Practice – which included the Skills and Simulation provision for our courses - I worked for 7 years at Leeds Beckett University, as a course leader and subsequently the academic Lead for practice placements. This gave me a comprehensive and invaluable insight and understanding of the varied placement circuit and enabled me to forge relationships locally regionally and nationally with a number of external colleagues and stakeholders. I was a key stakeholder in the ePAD (electronic practice assessment document on Pebblepad) and subsequent MYEPAD (Midlands Yorkshire and the East Practice Assessment Document) development groups, piloting the first regional ePAD while at Leeds Beckett.

I completed my PhD looking at Street Sex Worker Health Inequalities in Leeds and my research into this continues. I work with creative qualitative methods which work to address power imbalances in the research process and embody a feminist methodology. I am passionate about addressing stigma and discrimination of service users and of students, health inequalities. In addition to this I have a strong interest in student support and pastoral provision, and the delivery of skills and simulation teaching. Along with research colleagues Dr Rosie Campbell and Dr Daisy Matthews (York University), and as part of our School’s Quality and Safety research theme, I am currently writing up an ICB Core20Plus5 funded research study with street sex workers in Leeds, Kirklees and Bradford ‘Reducing barriers to healthcare’.

Responsibilities

• Chair of School of Healthcare Research Ethics Committee and Skills and Simulation Working Group
• Faculty Academic Lead - Placement Innovation and Community Engaged Education

Research interests

Health Inequalities, Under-served Populations, Street Sex worker health; Qualitative Research Methods and Creative Methods, timelines & artefact research, racism in student clinical placements.  

Qualifications

• B Soc Sci
• MSC URP (Development Studies)
• PG Dip (Nursing)
• P G Cert (Academic Practice)
• PhD Public Health

Professional memberships

• RCN
• NMC

Student education

I am an Academic Personal Tutor for Adult Nursing Students, and I currently teach on a variety of undergraduate modules and contribute to the Advanced Practitioner post graduate programme. I contribute to teaching on a wide range of topics that draw on my clinical and research expertise, including health inequalities, structural competence, clinical skills and simulation, care of the deteriorating and critically ill patient, and research methods. I have a long standing interest in Public Health and Health Promotion, where my PhD is situated, and a lot of my teaching draws on my research that I have conducted in my PhD and other studies that I have been involved in, as well as the work that I have been involved in on a voluntary basis. Clinically, I worked during COVID in critical care, and have also worked for many years as a festival nurse providing medical care, and I believe this adds to my skill portfolio. I enjoy teaching therapeutic communication skills, as well as evidence based nursing, and am passionate about addressing issues relating to diversity and inclusion. I also supervise PhD, Masters and undergraduate dissertations.