Dr Allan is Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Nursing and Midwifery Education

Helen is a registered nurse, registered nurse teacher and senior research fellow. Helen's area of interests are: The management of emotions in nursing and health services; reproduction and fertility, nursing role developments and their impact on caring; education and qualitative research methodologies including ethnography and feminism. Helen is also President of The Association of Psychosexual Nursing which uses Balint approach to nursing in women’s health. She’s recently been appointed as Fellow of the European Academy of Nursing Sciences (EANS). She has a clinical link with a gynaecology ward at East Surrey NHS Trust and is a Fellow of the Institute of Learning and Teaching. She has been an associate member of BICA for many years and contributes to the journal as a reviewer and occasionally submits a paper.

Helen’s PhD undertaken in a fertility clinic; she used ethnographic methods and in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, psychologists and patients to explore the nature of caring and managing emotions in fertility work. She has undertaken post doctoral work in the same field as well as a study trip to Australia and New Zealand where she visited 9 clinics to explore the nature of the nursing role in these countries. She is particularly interested at present in the role that technology has in shaping nurse-patient relationships and in the experiences of parenthood for couples who successfully conceive after IVF.