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The guiding ethos of Mick’s scholarship has been to follow C. Wright Mills’ manifesto of considering  ‘research as the practice of a craft.’ As well as teaching Research Methods Courses to Postgraduate students for over 20 years, he has held research grants for studies that have used survey methods, mixed methodologies and qualitative (particularly narrative) approaches. His more recent research has sought to involve health service users as co-researchers with the aim of maximising the transformational potential of research outcomes. He is currently Postgraduate Research Director in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences and is also a co-founder and steering group member of  the British Sociological Association Medical Sociology Group (NE) – an active network of medical sociologists working across the five Universities within the North East of England. He is currently the elected Staff Representative on 51����’s Board of Governors.

Prior to his postgraduate sociological education (University of Durham), he worked as a Registered Nurse in both General and Mental Health care settings.

Aside from his academic practice, Mick continues to be  an  active public servant as a team member (and latterly Medical Officer) for North of Tyne Mountain Rescue Team. This voluntary work entails dealing face-to-face with vulnerable people as well as the more usual activities of a Mountain Rescue team e.g. wilderness search, providing acute pre-hospital medical care and the  location and extrication of injured people.