UOW academic elected Chair of nation's peak nursing body

The Dean of UOW's Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences and Head of its School of Nursing, Midwifery and Indigenous Health, Professor Patrick Crookes, has been elected Chair of Australia's peak nursing and midwifery education organisation.

Professor Crookes has taken over as Chair of the Australia and New Zealand Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery (CDNM). He had previously held the position of Deputy Chair and Secretary of the Council and he replaces the current Chair, Emeritus Professor John Daly from the University of Technology, Sydney.

The CDNM represents the nation's 37 schools of nursing. Its goals are to promote best practice in pre-registration nursing and midwifery education as well as to foster research and research training in nursing and midwifery, to influence and set research priorities, and to build research capacity.

Professor Crookes believes the CDNM must work with the Federal and State Governments to tackle a range of issues including the preparation of the health workforce of the future and ensuring that the role of nurses/nursing in promoting, maintaining and repairing the health and well-being of the public is understood and appreciated.

“To this end, the imperative that nurses need high quality education provided by high quality institutions is obvious,” he said.

Professor Crookes is a registered nurse in the UK and Australia and is a member of the Royal College of Nursing Australia. He gained a BSc (Nursing) from Leeds Polytechnic (now Leeds Metropolitan University) in 1981 and a PhD investigating ‘Personal Bereavement in Registered General Nurses' from the University of Hull, in 1996.

He is a highly experienced educator. His 1998 text ‘Research Into Practice: essential skills for reading and applying research in nursing and health care’ co-edited with Sue Davies went into a second edition (2004); both of which were re-printed. This text is held by more than 80 libraries internationally and has sold more than 14,000 copies. The text stems from Professor Crookes’ teaching in this area for many years.

In 2007, Professor Crookes received a Carrick Institute (now the Australian Learning and Teaching Council) ‘citation for significant contribution to teaching and learning’.

His research interests include aged and dementia care, grief and bereavement, clinical leadership and evidence based practice focusing on the best mechanisms for translating research findings into practice. He is currently undertaking a project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council to devise a clinical assessment tool for use in pre-registration nursing programs across Australia.

Professor Crookes, together with Associate Professor Victoria Traynor, led the successful bid in 2006 for the establishment of the Eastern Australia Dementia Training Study Centre. He became the National Project Co-ordinator for the Dementia Training Study Centres in Australia before stepping down in July this year.

Professor Crookes has been a member of the Executive of the Australian Council of Deans of Nursing for the past six years.

Last reviewed: 28 October, 2009