Karen Gubbins

Karen joined West Midlands Ambulance Service in 1996 and qualified as a paramedic in 1998 within the Birmingham area. She was promoted to a first line manager in 2000 working with Wolverhampton. Karen then moved into the Training and Education Department in 2004 as worked as an Ambulance Tutor teaching all aspects of patient transport, ambulance technician and paramedic work.

She also ran the European Computer Driving Licence qualification for all staff within WMAS. In 2007, Karen gained a secondment to University of Worcester (UoW) to teach and run their very first Foundation Degree for paramedics, and gained a permanent position as a Senior Lecturer in 2009. Whilst working full-time at UoW, she studied for her BSc (completed in 2008), PG Cert (completed in 2010) and MSc qualifications, completing in 2011. During her employment at UoW, she undertook a number of pieces of research aimed at streamlining and ensuring the effectiveness of recruitment of new students into the paramedic programme.

Karen moved to Birmingham City University in the summer of 2018 where she is a Senior Lecturer and the admissions tutor for both Paramedic Science programmes.

Karen has published a number of text books aimed at student and practicing paramedics, as well as publishing a number of papers within professional journals.

In her spare time, Karen is a bass guitarist with a local rock band and likes sew plushies to raise money for a local cat rescue.