As a non-traditional entrant into higher education, Natasha Taylor started work in the healthcare sector in 1987. The long and arduous journey to academia truly began in 2001, when she started a certificate course in clinical work at a local university. However, once she started this journey, she quickly become ‘addicted’ to the process, and gained an honours degree in paramedicine and then multiple higher degrees in education. As part of these degrees in education and reflecting on her own innovative practice in digital simulation, she is now head of health simulation at one of the most innovative universities in the UK, Coventry University.
Coventry University’s values are their identity; driven forward by their people to help bring their mission, vision, and strategy to life. They inform their practice and decision-making and are essential for addressing challenges and opportunities in healthcare simulation. They have shaped their values to be enduring and strategic, emphasising their distinctive qualities and reflecting their aspirations. Natasha’s role has overall organisation-wide strategic lead and co-ordination of healthcare simulation-based education, both within the school and with external partners and organisations, to enhance the learner experience.
Natasha provides a strategic vision for the future of healthcare simulation both in physical locations and in digital settings and to work across professional and structural boundaries to ensure that simulation-based education is, a) of a consistently high-quality, reflecting simulation and professional governance standards, and b) innovative in its approach. As part of this role, not only does she directly influence digital simulation across all disciplines in the university but works with and for both national and international organisations and partners as the acknowledged expert in digital simulation. These innovative approaches to curriculum design, creates safe, aspirational spaces for engagement, collaboration and personal growth in a discipline where teaching safety, truly matters.