Dr Gillian Scanlan

Senior Lecturer Medical Education

Postgraduate Medicine, School of Medicine

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Contact

Email

g.scanlan@dundee.ac.uk

Phone

+44 (0)1382 386315

Biography

Gillian is a lecturer in Medical Education at the Centre for Medical Education (CME), School of Medicine, University of Dundee. Gillian’s background was originally in psychology, undertaking her BA Hons in psychology between 2010-2014 and undertaking a Masters in Clinical Health Psychology between 2014-2015 at the University of Strathclyde. Her interests in healthcare education and training then led her to apply for a PhD in Medical Education. Gillian was awarded a fully funded PhD position by the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC) and undertook her doctoral research at the University of Aberdeen between 2015-2019. She graduated with a thesis entitled: 'Understanding the Factors that Influence the Career Decision Making of UK Foundation Doctors'.

Gillian was an external part-time tutor for CME from 2017-2019 and after completion of her doctoral research joined CME in Feb 2019 as a lecturer in postgraduate medical education.

Research

Gillian's key research and teaching interests are: Organisational Culture & Support; Wellbeing; Resilience, educational and life transitions, Workplace learning, Professional and Personal Identity development, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

She has experience and expertise in research exploring recruitment and retention of trainee doctors, organisational support and career intentions, healthcare professional wellbeing and intervention development.   Experience in mixed method research in terms of conducting and analysing large scale online survey methodologies and collecting and analysing qualitative research (interviews, longitudinal Audio Diaries, Focus groups) from a diverse group of healthcare professionals (trainee doctors, doctors at all career grades, pharmacists, nurses). 

Gillian is principal and co-investigator for several research grants and awards, the most recent exploring the dual role of healthcare professionals who are parents and how these experiences impact on their career and wellbeing and the development of interventions to support doctors wellbeing and resilience.  

Gillian is currently the 'Professional Identity Development' research cluster lead within CME.

Gillian is currently co-supervising a PhD project with Dr Lisi Gordon that is entitled: 'The Development and evaluation of a resilience intervention that strengthens early career doctors emotional well-being and self-efficacy during transitions' with PhD candidate Fatimah Audah Altalhi.

View full research profile and publications

Teaching

Masters of Medical Education Programme

Gillian is lead in the following MMEd modules: Learning and Teaching in Medical Education, Clinical Teaching. She is deputy lead for Simulation Based Education.

Gillian supervises several masters and BMSc students using both qualitative and quantitative research methods and areas of interest.