Academic biography

Dr Marcia Kirwan is an Associate Professor at the School of Nursing, Psychotherapy and Community Health, Dublin. She qualified as a nurse from St. Bartholomew's Hospital and City University, London, and subsequently as a midwife from the University of Wales, Cardiff. She currently teaches mainly on the BSc. in Health and Society, but is experienced in teaching research and professional issues across nursing undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. She has a consistent commitment to teaching excellence within the school, with experience in programme management, module development and quality monitoring.

Dr Kirwan has over 30 years nursing and healthcare experience including specialist nursing roles, and national leadership roles. Her postgraduate qualifications include an MSc in Education and Training Management  and a PhD from DCU. Her PhD thesis was entitled Advancing Safety in Irish hospitals: a quantitative study of organisational, ward and nurse factors that impact on patient safety outcomes. Her research lies within three distinct but overlapping themes: patient safety, missed or rationed nursing care and workforce planning, and her collaborations on this work extend across many European countries.
In-keeping with that focus on patient safety and nursing research she has represented Ireland on the management committee of a European COST Action Project CA 15208: Rationing – Missed Nursing Care: An International and multidimensional problem (RANCARE). She was invited guest editor on missed care Special Issues of both Nursing Philosophy and the Journal of Nursing Management.