Integration of health humanities into midwifery programs at the University of Newcastle, Australia - a piece from our 2026 Health Humanities Award Recipients

By: Michelle Gray, Katharine Gillet, Nicole Hainsworth, Elysse Prussing, Nasrin Javid, Allison Cummins.

The midwifery team at the University of Newcastle delivers an undergraduate and postgraduate midwifery curriculum underpinned by a clearly articulated humanistic philosophy. The midwifery team has made meaningful contributions to contemporary knowledge in midwifery education and research, particularly in the field of health humanities. Several members have collectively contributed to the creation of new knowledge outputs and demonstrated specialist expertise in the scholarship of humanistic health education, midwifery philosophy, creative inquiry and innovative learning resources. Their scholarly work advances knowledge at the intersection of midwifery, education, and the health humanities, contributing both empirically and conceptually to the field.

The humanistic philosophy is systematically embedded within program courses. It draws on heutagogy, student‑centred adult learning pedagogy, and relational ways of knowing that explicitly position midwifery as both an art and a science. The heutagogical approach, combined with educational initiatives, has enhanced student engagement, their reflective capacity, and professional identity formation. Students consistently report that humanities‑informed learning supports deeper understanding of midwifery philosophy, relationship‑based care, and the emotional realities of practice.

Collectively, these approaches aim to cultivate transformational learning. Health humanities are integrated throughout clinical and theoretical course content. In theoretical courses, academics engage students with poetry, life writing, memoirs, women’s birth stories, and other narratives of lived experience as legitimate sources of knowledge. This intentional integration of arts and humanities humanises learning, deepens ethical awareness, and supports students to develop as reflective, compassionate, and critically conscious midwives. These approaches move beyond technical competence, supporting the development of emotional literacy, empathy, and critical reflexivity while fostering personal and professional growth.

Clinical midwifery experience education involves clinical supervision, reflective practice, and relationship‑based care consistently foregrounded as foundational professional practice. Clinical supervision facilitates reflective practice, and relationship‑based care is consistently foregrounded as a foundational professional principle. Reflection on women's experiences assists students to reflect on their relevance to midwifery practice; explore their own identities, values, sense of belonging, and strengths. Scaffolded health humanities initiatives of ‘Healthy Conversations' guide clinical supervision, which is incorporated into all courses that prepare students for clinical practice.

Humanities‑informed pedagogies directly support professional practice by strengthening students’ communication skills, emotional intelligence, and capacity for reflective supervision. This is done through role play/improv activities such as enacting delivering bad news and caring for families after perinatal loss supporting students learn to engage meaningfully with women’s stories, navigate complex emotional encounters, and advocate for humane care within systems often dominated by biomedical imperatives. This approach contributes to safer practice, professional resilience, and reduced moral distress. Humanistic pedagogies have strengthened students’ ability to sit with uncertainty, complexity, and ethical tension.

Congratulations to Zahra Aziz on her ANZAHPE Associate Fellowship!

Dr Zahra Aziz is a Senior Lecturer and Head of Online Education in the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Monash University, Australia. Her work focuses on designing scalable, low-cost and equitable models for global interprofessional education that connect students and educators across countries and health professions. She has led award-winning international initiatives that strengthen intercultural capability, collaborative practice and professional networks beyond local settings, preparing students to contribute to a culturally responsive, collaborative and globally connected future health workforce.

"I applied for Associate Fellowship of ANZAHPE because I value the organisation's commitment to advancing excellence in health professions education and fostering a strong community of education scholars. My work sits across interprofessional and intercultural learning, and this Fellowship felt like a meaningful way to connect with others working to improve how we prepare future health professionals."

Limbs & Things is a global developer & manufacturer of medical simulation equipment used by healthcare educators, universities, hospitals and simulation centres worldwide.

Founded in 1990, our mission is to improve patient outcomes by providing realistic, repeatable training tools that allow healthcare professionals to practise procedures safely before performing them on real patients.

For more than 150 years, the Division of Health Sciences I Te Tautarinui at the University of Otago I Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka has dared to lead in health education and research.

We provide world-leading undergraduate and postgraduate educational offerings, and play a crucial role in building a highly qualified health workforce that serves both local and international communities.

Our education programmes emphasise equitable health outcomes and a commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Our graduates provide high-quality, patient-centred, evidence-based care here in Aotearoa and around the world.

The Division of Health Sciences has a strong national presence with multiple clinical and teaching facilities across New Zealand, and major campuses in Ōtepoti Dunedin, Ōtautahi Christchurch and Pōneke Wellington.

A wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate disciplines are offered including:

• Medical Laboratory Science
• Pharmacy
• Physiotherapy
• Radiation Therapy
• Nursing
• Health Sciences
• Biomedical Sciences
• Dentistry
• Medicine

The Division has a thriving research community, with active participation from all academic departments. Many of our staff are world leaders in their areas of clinical or laboratory research.

There are many areas of strength in the Division that attract both national and international partnerships and have a significant and tangible impact on social wellbeing, sustainability and technology.

These key areas include:

• Mātauranga Maōri
• Pacific health
• Lifespan studies
• Health systems and workforce development
• Sustainability
• Clinical and population health
• Major health issues
• Infectious diseases
• Mental health
• Biomedical discovery and technology
• New research frontiers

The Division is committed to advancing health outcomes, strengthening health systems, and translating research into policy, practice, and innovation.

For more information about the University of Otago's Division of Health Sciences, please visit our conference exhibition stand or view otago.ac.nz/healthsciences

AMH is Proud to Partner with ANZAHPE in 2026

AMH is proud to continue its partnership with ANZAHPE in 2026, supporting healthcare educators with trusted, evidence-based medicines information that helps prepare the next generation of health professionals.

As a trusted source of up-to-date medicines knowledge, AMH provides independent, unbiased information that supports teaching, learning and clinical practice. Designed to make complex medicines information easier to understand, AMH’s consistent structure supports curriculum delivery, assessment design and clinical learning across every stage of education.

From university classrooms to clinical placements and professional practice, AMH supports future healthcare professionals develop the knowledge and confidence needed to make safer, more informed decisions about medicines.

We invite ANZAHPE members to connect with the AMH team throughout the conference and join our breakfast session:

The AI Era and Why Trusted Medicines Information Is Critical - Wednesday 1 July | 7:30 am – 8:30 am

Presented by Simon La Forgia, Research and Development Lead

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly embedded in healthcare and education, access to trusted medicines information has never been more important. In medicines information, where considerations such as dosing, interactions and contraindications can directly affect patient safety, accuracy and reliability must take precedence over speed.

This session will explore the importance of clinically reviewed, quality-assured medicines knowledge in the AI era and discuss why trusted sources remain essential for safe decision-making. It will also highlight how AMH continues to deliver reliable medicines information that educators, students and healthcare professionals can use with confidence.

We look forward to meeting ANZAHPE members and continuing the conversation about the future of medicines education.

MyKnowledgeMap was founded with a clear purpose: to make the complexities of medicine and healthcare education manageable. We focus on ensuring institutions can demonstrate that their graduates are competent, career-ready and aligned to national standards. For over 15 years, we have partnered with health professions educators globally to build the digital infrastructure that connects learning, assessment and outcomes in a single, coherent platform.

Our flagship product, MyProgress, is a flexible ePortfolio and programmatic assessment platform designed specifically for the demands of clinical and health professions education. It brings together workplace-based assessment, reflective practice, curriculum mapping, progress review and continuing professional development into one environment accessible on any device, configurable to any framework, and built to serve students, supervisors and institutions simultaneously.

For students and trainees, MyProgress is the tool that makes their development visible. It enables them to capture evidence across every placement, gather authentic feedback from supervisors in real time, and build a longitudinal record of competence that supports progression through training and registration with AMC/AHPRA.

For program directors and clinical supervisors, it removes the administrative burden that so often crowds out the work that actually matters: teaching, mentoring and developing the next generation of health professionals. Cohort dashboards, automated milestone alerts and structured feedback tools give supervisors meaningful oversight without adding to their workload.

For institutions, MyProgress provides the curriculum mapping and outcomes data that makes accreditation evidence straightforward to produce, and curriculum defensibility possible, even in an era of rapid technological change. Aligned to AMC standards, HPCAA requirements and the frameworks of Australia and New Zealand's specialist medical colleges, it is built for the regulatory landscape that our partners operate within.

MyKnowledgeMap is proud to be attending ANZAHPE 2026 in Ōtautahi Christchurch. The conference theme, Weaving Connection, captures something we believe deeply: that the future of health professions education is not built by any single institution, educator or tool in isolation. It is woven from the relationships, shared data and common purpose that connect us across roles, disciplines and geographies.

We look forward to meeting delegates in the Exhibitor Zone at stand 13-14 and to conversations about how MyProgress can support your programs. Visit us at myknowledgemap.com to learn more, or stop by the stand for a demonstration!

Meet one of our newest members, Robert Wells.

Robert Wells is a Lecturer in the Curtin School of Allied Health, and Course Coordinator of the Master of Speech Pathology. His work centres on interprofessional education, and he is particularly interested in how we prepare students to work collaboratively in real-world healthcare teams.

"A big part of my role is designing and leading large-scale interprofessional learning experiences that bring together students from different disciplines. I enjoy working with diverse teaching teams and creating learning environments where students can contribute, challenge ideas, and learn from each other in meaningful ways.

More broadly, I’m passionate about building inclusive, student-centred curriculum that reflects the complexity of healthcare practice. This includes leading unit curriculum renewal and working with colleagues across disciplines to strengthen how we teach teamwork, communication, and culturally responsive care.

Alongside teaching, I’m an active researcher in Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and allied health service accessibility. I’m particularly interested in research that has a clear connection to community impact, through advocacy, partnerships, or sharing findings in accessible ways.

I’m also the Communications Lead for the AIPPEN Operational Committee, where I contribute to connecting people and ideas across the interprofessional education community.

I joined this community because I value working alongside others who are committed to improving how we prepare health professionals for collaborative, inclusive practice across disciplines."

Meet one of our newest members, Dr Isabelle Jalbert.

Isabelle has recently been appointed as Associate Dean Education (Quality) for the Faculty of Medicine and Health at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). Professor Jalbert initially trained as an optometrist in Canada and completed her PhD in Australia. She has since worked across diverse settings including clinical research, government, and academia.  At UNSW Professor Jalbert heads a program of research and education focused on improving the delivery of evidence-based eyecare. Dr Jalbert has a particular interest in credentialing, assessment design, and educational leadership.

"I joined ANZAHPE to connect more broadly with like-minded educators across the health education sector. I am particularly looking for opportunities to collaborate on scholarly research focused on the assessment of interprofessional education and professionalism."

Co-designing and co-facilitating health professional education with people who have lived experience of health conditions creates authentic and meaningful opportunities for student learning. In 2024, the Interprofessional Parkinson’s Workshop for medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and speech pathology students was implemented at the University of Tasmania and is running in its third iteration this year. Co-design is the central tenant of the workshop, with the session being co-designed and co-facilitated by both people with lived experience of Parkinson’s disease or lived experience of caring for someone with Parkinson’s disease (PwLE), and by local clinicians.

The Interprofessional Parkinson’s Workshop addresses research by Anderson et al. (2025) which reports that service users and PwLE have not been sufficiently involved in designing or delivering entry to practice interprofessional education initiatives. To ensure that the design of the workshop was deeply informed by contemporary evidence, best-practice frameworks were applied during the design process including the Think Local Act Personal ladder of co-design (Think Local Act Personal, 2026) and the Patient Engagement in Research Plan (Hamilton et al., 2018). Pedagogical best practice was also at the forefront of the design. The workshop intended to increase students’ knowledge and understanding of Parkinson’s and extend students’ interprofessional collaborative practice capabilities. The session learning outcomes are aligned with an Interprofessional Capability Framework (Brewer et al., 2013), with a focus on role clarification, reflective practice, person-centred care, interprofessional communication, and collaborative practice.

Our approach to engaging with both PwLE stakeholders and local clinicians during the co-design and workshop delivery strived to dismantle any potential preconceived notions of the health professional being the ‘expert’. Rather, a collaborative approach, where the person receiving healthcare is placed at the centre of the care team, in line with the recommendations for best practice Parkinson’s care by Bloem et al. (2021), was adopted during the workshop. This evidence-based approach was used to highlight the vital importance of the lived experience, was used to model a collaborative approach to healthcare interactions, and was used to model patient-centred care to the students in the room. Following the workshop, a medical student spoke to one of the facilitators and said that ‘now I know why allied health needs to be involved in discharge planning’.

Initial results from the pilot evaluation (Martin et al., manuscript under review), show that of those who attended and were eligible, 92.7% (77/83) were recruited to the research survey. Following the workshop, students reported that they gained an awareness of the skills various professions specialised in, in addition to common skills and roles required of all health professionals. One such role was advocating within the healthcare system to improve care for PwLE. The opportunity that the Interprofessional Parkinson’s Workshop provides, for learners to develop their interprofessional identity (i.e., their shared roles) in group-based learning environments, aligns with socialisation theory (Tajfel et al., 1986). The socialisation theory relates to the interprofessional socialisation framework, which aims to support educators in the development of health professional students’ dual identities, these being their interprofessional identity and their professional identity (Khalili et al., 2013).

The novel element of this workshop, captured by the research evaluation, is the opportunity for meaningful engagement of PwLE in health professional education and the opportunity for students to socialise with PwLE in an interprofessional setting. Please contact Dr Romany Martin (romany.martin@utas.edu.au; School of Health Sciences, University of Tasmania) for any further information about the project, or if interested in collaboration.

References:

Anderson, E. S., Bennett-Weston, A., and Ford, J. S. (2025). Where is the voice of lived experience in interprofessional education? A scoping review. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/13561820.2025.2452977

Bloem, B. R., Okun, M. S., and Klein, C. (2021). Parkinson's disease. The Lancet, 397(10291), 2284–2303. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)00218-X

Brewer, M. L., and Jones, S. (2013). An interprofessional practice capability framework focusing on safe, high-quality, client-centred health service. Journal of Allied Health, 42(2), 45E-49E.

Hamilton, C., Hoens, A., Backman, C., English, K., McKinnon, A., McQuitty, S., and Li, L. (2018). Workbook to guide the development of a Patient Engagement In Research (PEIR) Plan. Arthritis Research Canada. The University of British Columbia. Accessed on 19 August 2025. Accessed from https://www.arthritisresearch.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/PEIR-Plan-Guide.pdf

Khalili, H., Orchard, C., Laschinger, H. K., and Farah, R. (2013). An interprofessional socialization framework for developing an interprofessional identity among health professions students. Journal of Interprofessional Care, 27(6), 448–453. https://doi.org/10.3109/13561820.2013.804042

Martin, R., Berndt, A., Teare, C., Bird, M-L., Lawton, J., Ogden, K., Radford, J., Moyle, B., and Cartwright, J. (2026). Co-designing an interprofessional Parkinson’s workshop: A pilot evaluation of a standalone teaching and learning intervention for medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, and speech pathology students. Focus on Health Professional Education. Manuscript under review.

Tajfel, H., and Turner, J.C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In S. Worchel and L.W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 276-293). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Accessed on 19 August 2025. Accessed from: https://www.christosaioannou.com/Tajfel%20and%20Turner%201986.pdf

Think Local Act Personal. (2026). Co-production: It's a long-term relationship. Accessed on 12 June 2026. Accessed from: https://thinklocalactpersonal.org.uk/resources/ladder-of-co-production/

Wolters Kluwer is proud to support ANZAHPE 2026 with a suite of complementary, trusted education solutions that connect learning from classroom to clinical practice.

Through Lippincott® digital resources, anatomy solutions, assessment tools, and leading medical and nursing texts, we help educators and students across the health science spectrum build confidence across every stage of their education journey.

Visit the Wolters Kluwer booth to explore the latest resources designed to support innovative, connected integrated learning experiences.