Professor Tonks Fawcett
Professor of Student Learning (Nurse Education)

Address
- Street
-
Room 2m.8
Doorway 6
Medical Quad,
Teviot Place - City
- Edinburgh
- Post code
- EH8 9AG
Background
Tonks is a graduate of the City University, London and St Bartholomew's Hospital nursing degree programme, and has had a long career in nurse education at the University of Edinburgh. She became Professor of Student Learning (Nurse Education) in 2012.Tonks holds key responsibilities in the undergraduate and post graduate nursing programmes, teaching extensively both theoretically and clinically She has been particularly closely involved in the undergraduate student nurses' clinical placement learning and practice and has enthusiastically maintained a strong clinically based teaching and learning focus throughout her academic career. From 2013-2017s he was Programme Director of an innovative new Masters of Nursing in Clinical Research, and from 2012 -2015 Senior Personal Tutor for the School of Health in Social Science and is currently Associate Dean for Academic Conduct for the College of Humanities and Social Science. In 2014 she was made a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Main areas of professional/academic interest Tonks’s research interests and activities include cancer care and survivorship, pain management, clinical decision making, clinical support of learner nurses and stress in nursing. She has also successfully supervised students towards their doctorate degrees. Her aim has always been to equip students of nursing with the critical and compassionate ability to understand, work and lead in 21st century systems of health and nursing care provision |
Responsibilities & affiliations
Principal Fellow Higher Education Academy (PFHEA)
Undergraduate teaching
Tonks teaches on all four years of the BN with Honours programme and on the MSc Advancing Nursing Practice. Key areas of expertise relate to pathophysiology and patient care, cancer care, pain and, particularly, clinical decision making and professional judgement.
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
Currently Tonks is supervising students in areas relating to cancer care, fever management , diabetes mellitus and decision making
Current PhD students supervised
Anny Chen, Ashikin Atan, Linda Sherwood
Research summary
Tonks’s research interests and activities include cancer care and survivorship, pain management, clinical decision making, clinical support of learner nurses and stress in nursing.
Research activities
- University of Edinburgh Learning & Teaching Conference to
- External Assessor: Promotions
- King's College London (External organisation)
- External Assessor: Promotions
- External Reviewer/Assessor
- International advisor/expert
- External Assessor: Professorial promotion
- Member of the Biosciences in Nursing Education (BiNE) the Higher Education Academy (HEA) Health and Social Care ClusterUK
- The joy of nursing: excellence in teaching nursing care
- External Assessor: Programme Validation BN/ M Nursing to
Current project grants
PTAS award 2017: Exploring the attitudes and learning needs of student nurses in relation to care home nursing The PTAS project, examining student nurses’ attitudes towards care home nursing and developing the Nursing Studies curriculum in relation to care home nursing, contributes to a larger programme of work to establish a Lothian Teaching/Research Care Centre (TRCC). The TRCC project seeks to support excellence in the care of frail older people, through care provision, teaching the present and future multidisciplinary workforce, innovative research, and partnership working across health and social care.
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An exploration into registered nurses’ knowledge of adult fever in Scotland: A mixed method study
(8 pages)
In:
Nurse Education in Practice, vol. 63
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nepr.2022.103411
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Care home nursing: Co-creating curricular content with student nurses
(6 pages)
In:
Nurse Education Today, vol. 84
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2019.104233
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
The challenge of the Biosciences in nurse education: A literature review
In:
Journal of Clinical Nursing, vol. 27, pp. 1793-1802
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jocn.14358
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Literature review (Published) -
Service evaluation: A grey area of research?
In:
Nursing Ethics, pp. 1-14
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733017742961
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Leaps in the dark: 60 years of nursing studies at the University of Edinburgh
(4 pages)
In:
Journal of Advanced Nursing, pp. 1-4
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.13186
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Editorial (Published) -
Where is the grade coming from?: Problems and challenges in evaluating the clinical performance of nursing students
In:
Open Journal of Nursing, vol. 5, pp. 470-481
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4236/ojn.2015.55050
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
If I have Seen Further It Is by Standing on the Shoulder of Giants: Finding a Voice, a Positive Future for Nursing
In:
Journal of Advanced Nursing
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jan.12556
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Re-finding the ‘human side’ of human factors in nursing: Helping student nurses to combine person-centred care with the rigours of patient safety
In:
Nurse Education Today, vol. 34, pp. 1238-1241
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.01.008
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Emotional labour and compassionate care: What's the relationship?
(7 pages)
In:
Nurse Education Today, vol. 34, pp. 1246-1252
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2014.03.002
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Emotive responses to ethical challenges in caring: A Malawi perspective
(11 pages)
In:
Nursing Ethics, vol. 21, pp. 97-107
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733013487191
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)