Dr Rachel Feeney
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Law
Biography
Rachel is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and member of the End of Life Research Program within the Australian Centre for Health Law Research. She previously worked as a speech pathologist in palliative and end-of-life care, intensive care, oncology and paediatrics. Rachel's early research focused on speech pathology and allied health topics, and in 2016 she was awarded a PhD on speech pathology and epidemiology. She has extensive experience in quantitative and qualitative research methods.Since joining QUT in 2015, Rachel's research has focused on end-of-life decision-making, including law, policy and clinical practice. She has a particular interest in voluntary assisted dying and the specific legal issues relevant to allied health professionals working in end-of-life care. Rachel has also contributed to the development of training for speech pathologists and other allied health professionals on end-of-life law and voluntary assisted dying. She was previously engaged as a clinical consultant for the Voluntary Assisted Dying Training Education Module for Healthcare Workers in Queensland.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Personal details
Positions
- Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Faculty of Business & Law,
School of Law
Keywords
End of life decision-making, Advance care planning, Advance directives and consent to medical treatment, Voluntary assisted dying, ACHLR
Research field
Public health, Other law and legal studies, Clinical sciences
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- PhD (University of Queensland)
- BSpPath (University of Queensland)
Professional memberships and associations
- Member – Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Queensland University of Technology
- Member – Speech Pathology Australia
- Member – Australian Allied Health in Palliative Care
- Member – Australian Association of Gerontology
Publications
- White, B., Ward, A., Feeney, R., Ley Greaves, L. & Willmott, L. (2024). Models of care for voluntary assisted dying: A qualitative study of Queensland's approach in its first year of operation. Australian Health Review. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/252527
- White, B., Ward, A., Feeney, R., Ley Greaves, L. & Willmott, L. (2024). Insights from Queensland's implementation of voluntary assisted dying. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/252808
- White, B., Feeney, R., Sellars, M., Neller, P., Yates, P. & Willmott, L. (2024). 'Can a relative override a patient's Advance Care Directive?': end-of-life legal worries of general practitioners and nurses working in aged care. Australian Journal of Primary Health, 30(1). https://eprints.qut.edu.au/246468
- Neller, P., Feeney, R., Willmott, L., Then, S., Munro, E., Cain, K., Yates, P. & White, B. (2024). Australian Indigenous people and treatment decision-making at end-of-life. Alternative Law Journal, 49(2), 104–113. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/248538
- Feeney, R., Willmott, L., Wilson, J. & White, B. (2024). Legal issues in end-of-life care for speech-language pathologists and social workers: A scoping review. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(2), 244–256. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/242514
- Willmott, L., Feeney, R., Del Villar, K., Yates, P. & White, B. (2023). Voluntary assisted dying: A discussion of key legal issues for Australian nurses. Collegian, 30(5), 701–707. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/242704
- Willmott, L., Feeney, R., Yates, P., Parker, M., Waller, K. & White, B. (2022). A cross-sectional study of the first two years of mandatory training for doctors participating in voluntary assisted dying. Palliative and Supportive Care. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/234202
- Willmott, L., Feeney, R., Del Villar, K., Chambaere, K., Yates, P., Mitchell, G. & White, B. (2022). Assisted Deaths Prior to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic): Would Patients Have Met the Eligibility Criteria to Request Voluntary Assisted Dying? Journal of Law and Medicine, 29(3), 811–828. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/234827
- Willmott, L., White, B., Feeney, R., Chambaere, K., Yates, P. & Mitchell, G. (2021). Intentional hastening of death through medication: A case series analysis of Victorian deaths prior to the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017. Internal Medicine Journal, 51(10), 1650–1656. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/211731
- Willmott, L., White, B., McGee, A., Meehan, R., Neller, P., Close, E., Cockburn, T., Ley Greaves, L., Feeney, R., Hewitt, J., Purser, K. & Kelly-Austin, A. (2019). Submission to the Queensland Parliamentary Inquiry into aged care, end-of-life and palliative care and voluntary assisted dying. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/128755
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Rachel, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Supervision
Current supervisions
- A longitudinal study of medial practitioners' experiences following the commencement of Voluntary Assisted Dying in Queensland
PhD, Associate Supervisor
Other supervisors: Professor Ben White, Professor Lindy Willmott
The supervisions listed above are only a selection.