Dr Sue Duke PhD, MSc, BSc (Hons), PGDE, RN, RNT
Associate Professor
Dr Sue Duke is an Associate Professor within Health Sciences, University of Southampton. Sue has extensive clinical and education experience in palliative and end of life care, and leads a team awarded Educator of the Year in the 2014 International Journal of Palliative Nursing Awards. Sue’s research and publications focus on the nature of palliative care nursing practice – particularly how practice is crafted through clinical interactions and the knowledge drawn upon within these interactions. She is currently working on research which is studying practice of supporting patients and family members with pain management and supporting carers in the transition between hospital and their family members’ preferred place of care.
I am passionate about providing high quality education because without it we cannot achieve clinical excellence.
I held several senior clinical and academic roles before coming to Southampton. Between 1990-2000 I was a Lecturer Practitioner in Palliative Care at Sobell House and Oxford Brookes University. In 2000 I was the first nurse consultant in the UK to be appointed to a palliative care post and in this position was employed by The Royal Berkshire Hospital NHS Trust and continued my academic appointment with Oxford Brookes University.
In 2006 I was appointed to my current post at the University of Southampton. My role within Health Sciences is to lead the cancer, palliative and end of life care curriculum and to ensure that this reflects contemporary clinical practice and provides research led education. We are particularly excited by the way in which cancer care has been threaded through our new all graduate pre-registration programme and that end of life care is now a core module for all second year adult field students. A recent addition to our portfolio of programmes is an MSc in Clinical Leadership in Cancer, Palliative and End of Life Care of which I am programme leader. This innovative programme has at its heart the importance of inter-relational practice and therefore has a focus on communication skills related to assessment, support and the development of others and services. The programme is jointly provided by the education and research team and therefore showcases our research in these fields as well as exploring ways in which to enhance patient services. As a team we were delighted to be awarded the Educator of the Year for 2014 in the International Journal for Palliative Nursing Awards’.
I regularly engage in work outside of the school. Until recently I led the education strategy in end of life care for the SHA and as a team we have made a significant contribution to end of life care communication skills training across the region.
My research interests are related to how knowledge is used in clinical practice. Most of the studies that I am involved with are concerned with carers of family members at the end of life and how they can best be supported in busy clinical environments. I have particular expertise in designing interventions that are delivered in conversations with patients and family members and in translating research knowledge into a clinically usable form.