Lauren Rees

I have worked in the field of children’s nursing across all levels of health care. I spent almost 20 years in clinical practice before turning my attention to nursing education and will soon commence teaching within children’s nursing once again. My heart is in both clinical practice and education. A previous focus was health assessment for children’s nurses, but I am now exploring ways to incorporate social accountability into the postgraduate diploma in nursing and midwifery curricula. My masters’ thesis explored the perceptions of neonatal and paediatric nurses, and nurse educators towards family-centered care. Nursing curricula in South Africa are still shaped by a Global North paradigm in its approach to nursing care of patients, families and communities. I am interested in operationalizing a socially accountable family-centered care model for postgraduate diploma in nursing and midwifery students from a global south perspective.

I enjoy academic writing and am looking forward to beginning my PhD journey. I want to investigate the students’ experience of ‘caring’ in the postgraduate diploma in nursing and midwifery programmes to inform a self and family care curriculum change framework that can transform their care practices in health care settings. It is my hope that the results of this work will provide insights into the ways nursing education can better train, support and empower nurses to provide appropriate and quality care services to mothers, caregivers and their children while caring for themselves and developing  mental health resilience.

Qualifications

MSc Nursing specialising in Nursing Education                            

Certificate in Primary Health Care Clinical Skills for Nurses

Diploma in Paediatric Nursing Science                                       

Diploma in Community Health Nursing Science                           

BSc Nursing with Midwifery                                                           

Publications

1. EMMERSON, K., IRLAM, L., OSHRY, C. & RAMJEE T. 1996: Folded blood pressure cuff results correlated with non-folded cuffs of equal size in children with or without hypertension.

Journal of Paediatric Medicine, 9 (2): 9-10

2. IRLAM, L. & BRUCE, J. 2002: Family-centred care in paediatric and neonatal nursing-a literature review. Denosa Curationis, 25 (3): 28-34

3. REES, L. & COETZEE, M. 2015: Effectiveness of Health Assessment Training in Nursing Programs: A Scoping Review [Presentation and Poster at conferences]