Pat Slater is considered a modern leader in nurse education, playing a major role in progressing hospital-based training to tertiary-based education. After gaining her General Nursing Certificate at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Pat undertook midwifery training at the Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, and Infant Welfare training at Karitane Home for Mothers and Babies, Sydney.

From 1943-1947 Pat served in the Australian Army Nursing Service in Australia and in Borneo. The years from 1947 to 1952 were spent travelling and working in Victoria, the Northern Territory, Western Australia and Queensland. Following this, Pat took up a teaching appointment and went on to travel and study extensively, completing a Diploma in Nurse Education and Master of Arts degree. Pat was a lecturer, then director at the College of Nursing Australia, introducing the first undergraduate college-based nursing course in Australia, ten years before this became mandatory.

Pat is credited with helping the profession’s education standards evolve from traditional apprentice training to high-level education courses. Her contribution to the College of Nursing and the wider profession was celebrated when the street on which the Nurses Memorial Centre stands in Melbourne was renamed Slater Street in 1984, along with an annual memorial award, the Patricia Slater Award.