Research in nursing and midwifery celebrated

Sydney Nursing School held its annual Nursing and Midwifery event at the Charles Perkins Centre on Tuesday, June 30.
The event showcased the crucial role that nursing plays in the healthcare system, and highlighted the research strengths of academics and students who are working on the ground in communities in Sydney, across Australia and internationally.

In her opening remarks, the Dean of Sydney Nursing School Professor Donna Waters emphasised the breadth of work conducted by the faculty, “the research and the scholarship that is undertaken in the Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery is quite multi-faceted and quite varied, much like the health system itself.”
Vice Chancellor Dr Michael Spence spoke about the changes that the nursing and health professions have undergone at the university in the past seven years: “Like the rest of the world, we had a very illness-focused understanding of health, a very doctor-centric and a very hospital-centric approach to health… we knew that that model of healthcare was simply unsustainable and had reached the limits of its clinical effectiveness.”
Dr Spence congratulated the faculty and its committed supporters in the profession, the community and from donors.
“People get the fact that it is critical to the future of the healthcare systems that these professions [nursing and midwifery] thrive,” he said.
Tuesday night’s event brought together hospital and community health representatives, government, current higher degree research students, academic colleagues, donors, alumni and faculty staff.
PhD students Tara Flemington and Rebecca Ogilvie gave presentations of their work, as did Senior Lecturer Dr Thomas Buckley. The presentations demonstrated the diverse research activity undertaken by academics and students within the Sydney Nursing School, and showed how this work continues to contribute to real-world change in health policy.
Associate Professor Ross Steele (AM) spoke about the recent $10.8 million dollar donation to the Nursing School by Susan and Isaac Wakil, the largest ever donation to a nursing school in Australia. The donation will establish 12 scholarships in perpetuity with some reserved specifically for rural, regional and indigenous students.