Poole-Wilson was educated at Marlborough College in Wiltshire where he was senior scholar, Trinity College, Cambridge, and St Thomas' Hospital Medical School (now a part of King's College London), University of London, where he was an exhibitioner and received the Stewart Grainger Prize.
He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne, Jesus College, Oxford (Exhibitioner; Honorary Fellow, 1966), and Westminster Hospital (Scholar).