[2] Whilst at school she joined the St John Ambulance brigade and spent her weekends administering first aid.
[3] In her second year she started a project on people who self-harm, and was surprised by the attitudes of staff to members of her patient groups.
[3] Her medical house job was with Charles George, a clinical pharmacologist who taught her about the importance of understanding the mechanism by which drugs work.
She unsuccessfully applied to the training programme in psychiatry at Southampton and eventually started a research position with Guy Edwards where she assessed patients on medical wards following self harm.
[4] In her capacity as Dean of the Royal College of Psychiatrists she coordinated clinical examinations, professional development and lead national recruitment.
[3] Since 2016 Burn has led the Gatsby Foundation and Wellcome Trust Neuroscience Project, which looks to transform training for psychiatry trainees.
[7][9] The project looks to increase the neuroscience components of psychiatric training to make it meet modern mental health treatment requirements.
[9] The initial phase included a review of the current curricula of neuroscience and psychiatry, which made recommendations for a new curriculum.
[14] Burn was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2021 New Year Honours for services to mental health.
In 1993 she was the first consultant in the Psychiatry Unit located at the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust to take maternity leave for her son's birth.