Dr Helen Donovan
Faculty of Health,
School of Nursing
Biography
As an experienced university lecturer and clinician in the health disciplines of nursing and midwifery and child health, I bring both knowledge and experience to the learning environment. Having worked in metropolitan, regional, rural and remote centres I have worked across many areas of clinical practice. This includes but is not limited to working in acute medical and surgical areas of practice, chronic diseases in paediatric and adult health care situations, plus gynaecology and running child health clinics. I have also worked in adult and paediatric operating theatres which included orthopaedics, neurological, opthalmology, ENT, plastics, burns and general abdominal and chest surgeries. As a midwife, I have worked across all areas of ante natal, perinatal and post natal care including women with complex acute and chronic conditions that impact on their health care needs. I am particularly interested in professional practice in the clinical setting with a focus on transition to practice and resilience in practice for the beginning registered nurse and midwife, and how health environments can challenge the beginning RN/RM, and impact the care provision on both consumers and members of the health care profession.Personal details
Positions
- Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Health,
School of Nursing
Research field
Nursing
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- PhD (Central Queensland University)
Professional memberships and associations
- Fellow - Royal College of Nursing Australia
- Member - Queensland Nurses and Midwifery Union
- Member - NTEU
- Member - Australian College of Midwives.
- Member - Sigma Theta Tau
Teaching
I have been teaching at a tertiary level for about 15 years, and with two Masters degree in education to underpin my teaching, I have been able to develop and create environments of learning that meets the learning needs. My PhD examined the experiences of double degree nurse midwives. As most of the participants worked across both disciplines simultaneously, it highlighted the need for these graduates (and all graduate nurses and midwives) to be resilient and to develop coping skills and strategies that effectively enabled their transition into the eclectic world of nursing and midwifery. These findings have been instrumental in my teaching and preparing nurses for real world practice and career development. As a result of the needs identified from these findings and my teaching experience, I have developed a website www.nurseintransit.com to assist gradaute nurses and midwives in their preparation for practice as registered health practitioners, and I have run (and continue to run) Job interview workshops for the past 6 years. I have recently achieved a Senior Fellow in the Higher Education Academy London award (2018) for my experience in teaching and mentoring teaching teams. I have also been awarded the Formal Mentoring role at Senior Fellow level. This aligns with my role as Nursing COMPASS coordinator where I support students in their mentorship of others so that they understand and can work effectively with academic assessment tasks.
Experience
My overall philosophy of teaching is one of inclusiveness and collaboration. The implementation of these principles facilitates a learning environment that promotes a culturally safe partnership, where all students feel equally valued and respected. Those students who experience inclusive education, express a sense of belonging and worth and are more confident to openly share their experiences and perspectives. It is the diversity of the shared experiences that expands the students’ own knowledge and immerses them into an environment of exploration and enquiry based learning. To encourage students to learn through enquiry is the corner stone to being a lifelong learner. Such a learner must feel confident in their question asking and confident that their questions are valuable and will be valued. Working collaboratively enables the student to share knowledge and experiences and to share in the question asking. It is this type of learning environment when experiences can be framed as building blocks to knowledge, and analysis and reflection facilities advanced reasoning and understanding.
Publications
- Donovan, H., Welch, A. & Williamson, M. (2021). Reported levels of exhaustion by the graduate nurse midwife and their perceived potential for unsafe practice: A phenomenological study of Australian double degree nurse midwives. Workplace Health and Safety, 69(2), 73–80. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/204676
- Capper, T., Brown, J., Donovan, H., Hegney, D., Williamson, M., Cusack, L., Solomons, T. & Wilson, S. (2020). Individual and environmental factors that influence longevity of newcomers to nursing and midwifery: a scoping review protocol. JBI Evidence Synthesis, 18(6), 1271–1277. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/204147
- Forster, E. & Donovan, H. (2016). Enhancing bereavement support skills using simulated neonatal resuscitation. International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 22(10), 500–507. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/113569
- Donovan, H. & Forster, E. (2015). Communication adaption in challenging simulations for student nurse midwives. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 11(10), 450–457. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/87527
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Helen, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).