Born: 26 June 1936, Australia
Died: NA
Country most active: Australia
Also known as: Judith MacRea
This biography has been shared from The Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, published by the Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Judith Parker undertook her basic nursing education through the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Associated Hospitals School of Nursing. Following three years as a staff nurse and two years as a nurse educator she left full-time nursing for a number of years to concentrate on raising four children and undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate study at Monash University, supplemented by part-time clinical work. As one of very few PhD prepared nurses working in higher education in nursing in Australia in the early 1980s, she was well positioned to play a leading role in the transfer of nursing education from hospitals to higher education. Subsequently she was extremely influential in the development of higher degrees in nursing and in the establishment of a research base for the discipline in Australia. Her contribution to scholarship and professional development in nursing is highly regarded internationally.
Details
Professor Parker is one of the pre-eminent figures in Australian nursing education and scholarship. In her career as a nursing academic she has been at the helm of a series of major innovations. From the Head of Nursing at the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences, to the Foundation Head and Professor of Nursing at La Trobe University, to the establishment of the School of Nursing at the University of Melbourne, Professor Parker has been a trailblazer, highly regarded and immensely influential in the establishment and development of the discipline of nursing in Australia.
She is esteemed internationally for her work in promoting international nursing, for the quality of her publications and for the role she has played as Founding Editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Nursing Inquiry. She has played a major role locally and internationally on key committees and boards aimed at promoting nursing research and scholarship. She was included in the Victorian Honour Roll for Women 2001 and appointed a member of the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2002. In 2005, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Medicine and appointed Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne.
Chronology
1954 – 1957
Student nurse at Royal Melbourne and Associated Hospitals School of Nursing
1957 – 1960
Staff Nurse, Royal Melbourne Hospital
1961 – 1962
Nurse Educator, Kingston Centre
1963 – 1971
Clinical nursing, part-time
1971 – 1974
Charge Nurse, part-time; rehabilitation, long-term care, diabetic unit, Caulfield Hospital
1974
Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Major in Sociology, Monash University
1975 – 1978
Tutor part-time, Sociology Department, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Monash University
1975 – 1979
Recipient Commonwealth Post-Graduate Research Award
1979 – 1982
Lecturer, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences
1981
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Sociology of Health and Illness, Monash University (thesis titled “Cancer Passage: Continuity and Discontinuity in Terminal Illness”)
1982 – 1983
Senior Lecturer, Co-ordinator of Bachelor of Applied Science, (Advanced Nursing) Course, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences
1984 – 1987
Head, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences
1988 – 1989
Chairperson and Director of Studies, Department of Nursing, La Trobe University
1989 – 1996
Foundation Professor, School of Nursing, La Trobe University
1995 – 2005
Editor-in-Chief, Nursing Inquiry
1996 – 2004
Foundation Professor and Head, School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, University of Melbourne
2001
Cited on the Victorian Honour Roll for Women
2002
Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia
2003 – 2004
Deputy President, Nurses Board of Victoria
2004 – 2005
Visiting Professor, Department of Nursing Studie, University of Hong Kong
2004 – 2005
Special Professor, School of Nursing, University of Nottingham
2005 –
Honorary Professor, Department of Nursing Studie, University of Hong Kong
2005
Emeritus Professor, University of Melbourne
2005
Doctor of Medicine, (Honorary), University of Melbourne
The following is republished with permission from the Victorian Honour Roll of Women.
Professor Judith Parker has been involved in nursing education since 1963, and has made a significant contribution to the community.
Professor Judith Parker has been involved in nursing education since 1963, particularly in the transition of nursing eduction from a hospital based system to the tertiary sector, where she is an acknowledged scholar and leader. She has been the Foundation Professor of two university Schools of Nursing and the Foundation Editor of the Australian based international nursing journal, Nursing Inquiry.
Judith has made a significant contribution to the community from a female dominated profession, which when she started her training in 1954 was typified as a handmaiden vocational roll. Amongst her major achievements, are her influence on the nursing profession and her research. Judith’s PhD thesis was ‘Cancer Passage: Continuity and Discontinuity in Terminal Illness’ and she has continued with significant studies in this area of grief and palliative care.
She has published extensively in national and international journals and books. She has also undertaken research in the following areas: nursing labour force; evaluation of palliative care; twenty four hour home nursing; critical care education; patient progress notes; handover; narratives of nursing; recording nursing practice; best practice rosters; nursing case mix; evidence based nursing; nurse practitioner evaluation; and palliative care.
She has been on the boards of management of the Wesley Central Mission, the Alfred Group of Hospitals, Victorian Hospitals Association, Victorian Palliative Care Education and Training Committee, Very Special Kids, Case Management Society of Australia, Victorian Case mix Consortium and is a current Director of the Victorian Centre for Evidence Based Nursing Practice and the Victorian Centre for Nursing Practice Research. Judith has written many papers for both Australian and International audiences. Quality nursing practice is her focus.
She has represented the nursing profession on Commonwealth and State government committees over the past decades. She has three remarkable firsts, two foundation chairs and the first Editor of Nursing Inquiry. Her major professional interests are discipline development in nursing through research and scholarship; policy practice and training in home and ambulatory care; organisational change and educational administration; historical and philosophical issues in nursing; feminist thought in nursing and looking after the whole person.
Her contribution to Australian nursing has been a leading force in changing approaches to patient care. She established the Victorian Centre for Nursing Practice Research to bring together often competing stakeholders from health and tertiary sectors into a collaborative effort.