About
Dr Bull is a lecturer in the academic unit of Clinical and Experimental Sciences (CES). She has several roles within the Faculty of Medicine. She is the Psychology subject lead, coordinating the teaching of psychology to undergraduate medical students in the BM4/5/6/EU programmes. She is the Foundations of Medicine deputy module lead, organising and coordinating the Foundations of Medicine tutorials during the first semester in year 1 of the BM5/6/EU programme. She is the CES Academic Unit Coordinator for the BM5/6/EU Project Group which organises and coordinates the Research Project Module which takes place in year 3 in the BM5/6/EU programme. She is also Head of Field for Paediatric Clinical Neurosciences BM5/6 year 3 projects. She is a reviewer on the Faculty of Medicine ethics committee, representing CES. With regard to research, Dr Bull is co-investigator and Quality of Survival (QoS) lead for the CRUK funded International Society of Paediatric Oncology Europe (SIOPE) randomised controlled trial (RCT), ‘International prospective study on clinically high-risk medulloblastoma’ the commonest malignant brain tumour of childhood. She is also co-investigator and the international and UK national QoS coordinator (funded by The Brain Tumour Charity) for SIOPE PNET5, the current European RCT for standard risk medulloblastoma. Dr Bull is also co-investigator on a Children with Cancer UK funded study entitled, ‘SMILE: An international network for medulloblastoma survivorship and late effects’, comprising a unique multidisciplinary team of internationally-leading experts and future leaders, optimally positioned to initiate a pan-European network for the development and delivery of future clinical advances in survivorship outcomes.
Research
Research groups
Research interests
- Quality of survival in children treated for brain tumours within the context of European treatment trials.
- Health-related quality of life in children treated for brain tumours.
- Optomising the collection of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in children treated for brain tumours.
- Online methods to collect PROs from children treated for brain tumours.
- Interventions to improve quality of life in children treated for brain tumours.
Research projects
Active projects
Publications
Teaching
Faculty of Medicine Psychology subject lead
BM5/6/EU Year 1 & 2 Steering and Assessment Group
Deputy module lead for Foundations of Medicine - responsible for organising the Foundations tutorials in year 1 of the BM5/6/EU programme
BM5/6/EU Project Module Leaders Group - Clinical and Experimental Sciences representative
Head of Field for Paediatric Clinical Neuroscience - year 3 projects
BMedSc year 3 projects supervisor
BM programme selector - selector of students for admission to the BM programme
Personal academic tutor
External roles and responsibilities
Biography
Dr Bull began her part-time university education in Switzerland as a mature student in 1992 whilst working part-time and bringing up three young children (aged 6 and twins aged 4). She moved to the UK in 1994 and worked as a Teaching Assistant until 1998 when she began working at the University of Southampton as a Research Assistant, whilst studying for her MSc in Psychological Research Methods, having completed her BSc(Hons) in Psychology the same year. To begin with, she worked on research related to children and young adult survivors of cancer and then in 2001 she began working on European treatment trials and research projects related to quality of life (QoL) in children treated for brain tumours, mainly medulloblastoma, the most common malignant brain tumour in childhood. Beginning in 2001 she studied children in the UK who had been part of the ‘PNET3’ European treatment trial for medulloblastoma then in 2003, she began to study QoL outcomes in children enrolled in the subsequent European treatment trial for medulloblastoma, ‘PNET4’ and since 2014 she has been responsible for quality of survival data collection in the current European trial, 'PNET5' and since opening in 2021, the current European trial for high risk medulloblastoma, 'HRMB'. In 2004 in the UK she began a research project investigating quality of life over time in children treated for medulloblastoma and cerebellar astrocytoma (the most common type of benign brain tumour in childhood) compared with a group of typically developing children. This resulted in her graduating with a PhD in 2013 after 7 years of part-time study. In 2011, with funds from the European Commission, she worked on the development of a neuro-oncology module (for children with medulloblastoma enrolled in 'PNET5') for HealthTracker, a web-based quality of life assessment system. In 2020, HealthTracker was superseded by KLIK in ‘PNET5’ and is currently used in 'HRMB'. KLIK was initially developed in the Netherlands for gathering patient-reported outcomes (PROs) for use in clinical practice and through the Brain Tumour Charity funded PROMOTE study, in 2016, Dr Bull was instrumental in bringing KLIK to the UK, developing and testing it for use in paediatric neuro-oncology clinics. In 2015, in addition to Dr Bull's research activities, she began volunteering for many roles in medical education in the Faculty of Medicine. Dr Bull likes to read in her spare time and spend time with her family and friends and with her aging horse, as well as walking and cycling in the countryside and around Chichester harbour where she lives.
Prizes
- Winner of the best in category prize (2016)
- The Dean’s award for postdoctoral researchers (2018)
- Michael Arthur Prize (2008)