Dr Ruthie Jeanneret

Biography

Dr Ruthie Jeanneret completed her PhD at the Australian Centre for Health Law Research, Faculty of Business and Law, supervised by Dr Eliana Close, Professor Lindy Willmott and Professor Ben White. Ruthie's PhD examined patient and family perspectives on the regulation of voluntary assisted dying in Australia and Canada, and their role in influencing regulation. Her PhD was nested within the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project, Enhancing end-of-life decision-making: Optimal regulation of voluntary assisted dying (2020-2024, headed by Professor Ben White).

As part of her PhD project, Ruthie conducted interviews with patients and their family members in Australia and Canada. Interviews aimed to understand individual patients' and families' perspectives and experiences of how voluntary assisted dying is regulated (i.e. how laws, policies, and other mechanisms are working in practice). Interviews also investigated the role that patients and families play in influencing how voluntary assisted dying systems operate in practice.

Background

Ruthie graduated from the University of Tasmania with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours in Law) in 2017. She was the valedictorian of her class. Ruthie's Honours thesis was on the topic of legal responses to substance use during pregnancy.  After finishing her undergraduate studies, Ruthie completed a Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice in 2018. During this time, Ruthie worked as a research assistant in the Centre for Law and Genetics at the University of Tasmania, including on an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant project, Genomic Data Sharing: Issues in Law, Research Ethics and Society (2018 - 2021).

In August 2018, Ruthie began working as a litigation lawyer in a private law firm in Hobart, Tasmania, where her practice centred primarily on commercial litigation, but also on criminal law and guardianship and administration matters. Ruthie then moved to Brisbane at the start of 2020 where she worked in a private law firm in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution team, where her work centred on commercial and consumer law disputes.

Ruthie commenced at QUT at the end of 2020, where she worked as a Senior Research Assistant on a project involving developing voluntary assisted dying training for doctors and nurse practitioners involved in voluntary assisted dying in Western Australia and Queensland. Ruthie has also undertaken roles as a Research Assistant and Sessional Academic doing tutoring and marking in LWS101, LWD101, LWN164, and LLH401.

She is now employed as a Lecturer at The University of Queensland. She works in the Academy for Medical Education, teaching Ethics, Law and Professionalism within the MD Programme, and the TC Beirne School of Law.

Research interests

Ruthie has a strong interest in all aspects of health law and end of life law. Her particular interest is in voluntary assisted dying.