Rafferty was born and raised in
Kirkcaldy,
Fife,
Scotland. Her father was a coal miner and her mother a nurse. Rafferty says that it was hearing her mother's stories of nursing prisoners of war during the Second World War that inspired her to become a nurse. Rafferty attended St Marie's Primary School and St Andrew's High School, both in Kirkcaldy, Fife. She graduated from the
University of Edinburgh in 1982 with a
BSc in nursing studies. From 1982 to 1986 she worked as a staff nurse and research assistant at the
Queen's medical centre, Nottingham while studying for her
MPhil in Surgery at the
University of Nottingham. Rafferty studied for her
DPhil (Modern History) at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at the
University of Oxford and was a student of Green College (now
Green Templeton College). During her studies, Rafferty worked part-time as a nurse teacher and lecturer at the
John Radcliffe Hospital and
Open University. In 1989, she was awarded her DPhil and is widely cited as the first nurse to be awarded a DPhil from the University of Oxford. In 1994, Rafferty was awarded a
Harkness Fellowship to study nursing policy at the
University of Pennsylvania, where she worked with
Linda Aiken on the role of nursing in the
Clinton Administration health care reform agenda. ==Career==