2025 ANZAHPE Grant Submission

Invitation to Collaborate

Climate change is the defining public health and ethical challenge of this generation. For midwifery, a profession grounded in advocacy, equity, and stewardship for future generations, responding is integral to practice. Education is the critical moral lever that equips practitioners to recognise climate-related harm, act responsibly within constrained systems, and advocate for change aligned with professional values. Policy and practice must then translate knowledge into consistent, system-level improvement.

Our international survey, Global perspectives on climate change awareness and sustainable healthcare practices among midwives, has now closed and produced an international dataset on knowledge, attitudes, workplace education, sustainable initiatives, PPE use and disposal, and barriers to change. These data will inform peer-reviewed publications and provide foundational evidence for a 2027 Australian Research Council (ARC) application focused on climate-responsive, environmentally sustainable maternity care.

The ARC program in development will co-design education that embeds sustainability across curricula, develop policy guidance for health services and regulators, and generate implementation resources to shift everyday practice. Consequences of inaction: avoidable harm, widening inequities, and an underprepared workforce are unacceptable for women, babies, and communities who already bear disproportionate climate risk. Our goal is measurable, transferable, and commensurate with the scale of the challenge.

I invite ANZAHPE colleagues to join the ARC team. We are seeking collaborators in health professions education, curriculum design, assessment, simulation, policy development, systems thinking, behaviour change, implementation science, qualitative and mixed methods, and maternity and women’s health. Opportunities include co-analysis, co-authorship, education-focused work packages, and collaborative grant writing.

To express interest or request further information, please contact: Dr Carolyn Hastie, RM, PhD, Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University c.hastie@griffith.edu.au

Expressions of interest by 30 April 2026 are welcome; we will convene a meeting to outline roles, timelines, authorship, governance, and pathways for education, policy, and practice impact.

Dr Carolyn Hastie, RM, PhD

Senior Lecturer, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Griffith University

c.hastie@griffith.edu.au

Congratulations to Dr Cindy Jones on her Associate Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

Dr Cindy Jones is an experienced academic and researcher, currently serving as Associate Professor of Behavioural Sciences and Co-Head of the Bachelor of Medical Studies in the Bond Medical Program. She holds a PhD in Health and a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education and provides senior academic leadership in health professional education, including curriculum innovation, assessment design, and accreditation-aligned curriculum renewal. Her work also includes reciprocal international partnerships involving international clinical placement opportunities and cultural health education programs, as well as the supervision of higher degree research students and the delivery of professional development for health educators.

Dr Jones is nationally and internationally recognised for her research in social and behavioural science, with a particular focus on improving dementia care, including evidence-informed health professional education. Her research examines innovative health technologies and psychosocial interventions, with a strong emphasis on translation into education and practice. This includes the development of the Engagement of a Person with Dementia Scale and the nationally funded Sexualities & Dementia: Education for Health Professionals resource developed with Dementia Training Australia.

She is Co-Lead of the Collaborative for Research in Understanding Stigma in Healthcare (CRUSH) at Bond University, focused on reducing stigma in healthcare through research and education, and leads interdisciplinary and international research alliances. Dr Jones holds adjunct appointments at Griffith University and Kaohsiung Medical University (Taiwan), has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers, secured more than $4 million in competitive research funding, and holds editorial roles across leading international journals. She has been recognised among the world’s top 2% of scientists by Elsevier and Stanford University annually from 2021 to 2025 and regularly delivers keynote presentations at national and international conferences.

"My scholarly interests centre on advancing evidence-informed and compassionate health professional education, particularly in the areas of ageing, dementia care, and mental health stigma. My work integrates behavioural science, curriculum design, educational leadership, and applied research to enhance learning experiences and promote patient-centred care outcomes. I have a particular interest in the use of innovative and emerging technologies to support health student learning and reduce stigma within healthcare education.

I am applying for Associate Fellowship with ANZAHPE to continue my commitment to educational scholarship, curriculum development, and leadership in health professions education. ANZAHPE’s emphasis on collaboration, educational quality, and scholarly practice aligns closely with my professional values, and I am keen to contribute through mentorship, interdisciplinary collaboration, and the dissemination of evidence-based educational approaches."

2025 ANZAHPE Grant Submission

The quality of health equity learning in health professions education may benefit from a semiotic (sign process) theory of biological-environment relations termed biosemiotics.

Our research group aims to test this hypothesis by producing an online learning module of biosemiotic concepts relevant to social health determinants known to indirectly and adaptively produce chronic illnesses.

Key biosemiotic concepts include lifeworld, the species-specific field of sign perception from which living things make meaning of their ecological niche. Sign information in life- world is multisystem and dynamic; a sign being ‘a difference that makes a difference’. Semiosis is a process of sign sensing, perception of value difference, and interpretation of meaning of environmental changes. The structuration of health by powerful sign information from adverse social, political, and commercial determinants complexly model internal semiotic meanings of illness. The purpose of treatments and equity actions is to restore the imbalance of positive and negative signs communicating inequity of health outcomes between people differently and unfairly exposed to structural determinants. The biosemiotic process is theorised to cross biological barriers to internal organs, organelles, and the cell nucleus, that produce external symptoms and signs of illness. Biosemiotic theory links external sign processes to internal signalling and biomolecular mechanisms of illness, with psychological responses intermediating biomolecular and social changes.

Ethically, the impacts of external health determinants on patients’ illness presentation need to be fairly represented in a holistic clinical encounter and causal attribution. Biosemiosis, tied to lifeworld signs, may offer a tangible paradigm for representing systemic health determinants in clinical practice, equity advocacy, and research. The clinical goal is to make visible the invisible presence of additional, contextual burdens embodied in an equity patient’s or group’s illness.

To acknowledge external, structural causes of illness, people may use counterfactual reasoning to differentiate extrinsic, structural causes from intrinsic causes attributed to the individual e.g. genes, or cultural beliefs. In current human societies, the significant negative extrinsic signs are global crises in socioeconomic, climatic, and other systemic inequalities. These communicate and distribute inequities in individual and population health that are beyond patients’ control, e.g. by health behaviours.

Increased student visibility of inequities may be correlated with emotional empathy, and research of semiotic solutions with cognitive empathy. An inter-disciplinary health research project, to map an inequitable sign field or ‘semiosphere’, may identify sign targets for remodelling the lifeworld to be more health promoting.

Transformative teaching of social health injustice requires the wave-like weaving of content knowledge of biomedical illness with context knowledge of lifeworld health inequities, as in Maton’s Legitimation Code Theory. Patients’ social identities are less fundamental to the social determinants of health that operate to unfairly maldistribute vital health care resources. Chronic inequities in women’s, immigrants’ and Indigenous wellbeing may benefit from a 3-D perspective of illness causation inclusive of biological mechanisms, socio-political biosemiotic processes, and psychological intermediation. This may offer a stronger biopsychosocial account by which graduates reason illness causation, plan treatment, and promote health equity in times of rapid social change.

Kingsley Whittenbury PhD

Congratulations to Anna Vnuk, on her revalidation of Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

With a background in general practice, I first started working health professional education over 30 years ago, teaching medical students clinical skills at Flinders University.  More recently, I have had the pleasure of working for James Cook University in Cairns, a very beautiful part of the world! I undertook a Masters of Clinical Education at UNSW and a Doctor of Education at Flinders.  My research has always focused on the student experience – mostly the experience of learning physical examination, but also becoming self regulated learners, use of learning strategies, dealing with professionalism dilemmas and, most recently, the financial impacts of compulsory placement. 

ANZAHPE is a wonderful organisation to be a part of.  I have gained a lot from the ANZAHPE conferences, particularly developing research collaborations.  I have been pleased to be able to be part of the ANZAHPE management with my four years on ANZAHPE board of management.  I am part of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion subcommittee and look forward to continuing my involvement in this area.

Congratulations to Kylie Fitzgerald on her Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

Kylie is a senior lecturer in Medical Education and a registered allied health professional. She is has been working in the Doctor of Medicine program at the University of Melbourne Medical School since 2021 across several roles including faculty development, course advice and leading a medical education elective. Her work spans medical, allied health, and specialist training contexts, with roles in teaching, research, curriculum design, faculty development, and accreditation across Australia and New Zealand. Kylie has contributed extensively to ANZAHPE as a mentor, reviewer, conference contributor and values the organisation’s cross-disciplinary community of practice.

Her scholarly interests are currently focused on faculty development, small group facilitation approaches and clinical education.

Meet one of our newest members, Matthew Griffiths.

Matthew Griffiths is a public-health learning specialist working at the intersection of health professions education (HPE), field epidemiology, and systems strengthening.

My background is in designing and facilitating experiential, practice-based learning for health professionals, with a particular focus on how learning translates into real-world decision-making. Over the past two decades, I have worked with universities, ministries of health, and international organizations—most extensively with Field Epidemiology Training Programs across Australia, Asia, and the Pacific.

My interest in HPE lies in how professionals learn in complex, high-stakes environments, and how facilitation, reflective practice, and learning design can support sense-making and action rather than simple transmission of content. Alongside practice, I remain engaged in scholarship that bridges theory and lived educational experience.

I first engaged with ANZAPHE when I presented at the 2024 conference. I found it to be the most suitable academic home for my work—neither overly theoretical nor overly instrumental, but grounded in thoughtful practice and meaningful scholarship. I gained more from that conference than from the other conferences where I presented that year, and it confirmed my desire to be more actively involved in this community. This experience ultimately led me to join ANZAPHE as a member.

Congratulations to Paul Kane on his Associate Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

Paul is a Radiation Therapist and has worked in health professional education for over 20 years. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Radiation Therapy, University of Otago Wellington. He is also the New Zealand Deputy Editor for the Journal of Medical Radiation Sciences, the Australia and New Zealand journal for Medical Imaging, Radiation Therapy and Nuclear Medicine.

Paul’s scholarly work has resulted in publications across several areas of health professional education such as simulation, assessment and technology for teaching and learning. He is currently part of a large health professional educator team investigating unacceptable behaviours experienced by students while on clinical placement. Paul has also recently submitted his PhD thesis which explored theoretical principles to guide radiation therapy curriculum.

“As a health professional and educator, I have always enjoyed working in teams and as part of a community. I attended my first ANZAHPE conference a couple of years ago. I was so enamoured by the experience that I want to take every opportunity to engage with this amazing organisation and its members. Associate Fellowship will allow me opportunities to both learn more about and support others in the practice and research of health professional education.”

Congratulation to Dr Bao Nguyen on her Associate Fellowship with ANZAHPE.

Dr Bao Nguyen is an optometrist and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Optometry and Vision Sciences at The University of Melbourne. Her expertise is human visual neuroscience, spanning healthy development and ageing, neurodegeneration and neurological disorders. She is a passionate advocate for optometry education, previously serving on the Education Committee and as an Education Consultant for the continuing professional development of optometrists in Victoria, and was elected as a Board Director for Optometry Victoria South Australia in late 2025. She currently holds a Momentum Fellowship at The University of Melbourne.

Alongside her neuroscience research, Dr Nguyen has a scholarly and clinical interest in developing interpersonal skills of optometry students, and supporting health professionals in building empathy and recognising special needs. She is passionate about addressing inequalities and providing effective learning opportunities for all students.

"I applied for Associate Fellowship of ANZAHPE because I have experienced first-hand what a friendly and inclusive community this is. As an ANZAHPE Associate Fellow, I commit to contributing to health professional scholarship to ensure that diversity, inclusion, the "patient voice" and patient-centred care are at the heart of what we do."

Meet one of our newest members, Ricky Le.

Dr Khang Duy (Ricky) Le is a general surgery registrar who lives and works in Wurundjeri Country. He is particularly interested in the education and professional development of early preclinical as well as pre-internship medical students. As a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Medicine at Deakin Medical School, Dr Le is involved in the evidence-based clinical and simulation-based education, curriculum design and development, teaching and learning as well as the assessment of medical students.

"As an early career educator, I joined ANZAHPE after attending my first conference this year in Perth. I realise there is so much to learn in health professionals education and so many opportunities to do so through this rich network of health like minded individuals. As a member, I hope to be able to continue to develop my capabilities as an educator to better engage and serve our learners."

Meet one of our newest members, Rebecca Caulfield.

Rebecca is an emergency nurse with more than 15 years of clinical experience in a large tertiary Emergency Department and over 5 years of academic experience. After establishing her academic career in Canberra, she relocated to Western Australia in 2025 and is now a Lecturer at Murdoch University. In this role she coordinates a work integrated learning unit for final year nursing students, supporting their transition into complex and rapidly changing clinical environments.

Rebecca is completing a PhD exploring the experiences of emergency nurses in relation to ambiguous patient outcomes, a topic shaped by her long clinical background and deep interest in the emotional and ethical terrain of emergency care. Her teaching and research interests include neurodivergent learners, gamification for learning, Universal Design for Learning, and the preparation of nurses for diverse roles beyond the bedside, including policy, research, administration and education. She is also particularly passionate about integrating simulation into learning environments as a way to build confidence, clinical reasoning and adaptability in future nurses.

"I joined ANZAHPE because I was seeking a professional community that genuinely values inclusive, learner centred education, especially for students who don’t always fit neatly within conventional structures. As a nursing lecturer with a strong passion for supporting neurodivergent learners, I wanted to connect with colleagues who are committed to meaningful, evidence informed change across the health professions.

My first ANZAHPE conference in Adelaide set the tone. I expected a typical academic event but instead found an exceptionally welcoming community with an impressive breadth of professions and interests. The HTAG/SIGs have been a particular highlight, especially the growing group focused on neurodivergent learners, which offers space for shared exploration and practical innovation. I’ve also had the opportunity to publish in FOHPE, which was both rewarding and confidence building, reinforcing my sense that ANZAHPE is a place where diverse perspectives are not only welcomed but actively supported.

Looking ahead, I’m excited about the possibilities for deeper collaboration, future publications and ongoing conference involvement. Joining ANZAHPE feels less like a single decision and more like the beginning of a long, engaging partnership for my career as a nursing educator."