AUT - Centre for Midwifery and Women's Health Research: Our People
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Centre for Midwifery and Women's Health Research: Our People
Centre director
Dr Deborah (Debbie) Payne
Debbie is a registered nurse and senior lecturer. She has a long-stand interest in women's health issues particularly since the release of Dame Sylvia Cartwright's Inquiry into the Treatment of Cervical Cancer at National Women's Hospital in 1988. Her MA thesis (1987) was a qualitative study into the experiences of public hospital surgical patients regarding their rights as patients. Her experience of being labelled an “at risk elderly primigravida“ became the catalyst to her doctoral study with was a Foucauldian analysis of maternal age in relation to pregnancy and birth. The title of her thesis is (2002) The elderly primigravida: Contest and complexity
Debbie works with undergraduate and postgraduate students in the Faculty of Health & Environmental Sciences. Her particular teaching and practice expertise are research and women's health. Her main research interests are women's health issues with a special interest in disability, infertility, Assisted Reproductive Technologies, and, in breastfeeding and work. The particular research methodology that she has experience in is Foucauldian discourse analysis.
Centre co director
Dr Judith McAra Couper PhD
Judith has a special interest in technology and midwifery practice, which was the focus of her PhD thesis. She has been awarded a STAR postdoctoral grant beginning in 2010.
Centre supporting staff, associates and research interests
Associate Professor Liz Smythe PhD
PhD thesis: 'Being Safe' in Childbirth: A hermeneutic interpretation of the narratives of women and practitioners.Liz specialises in Heideggerian phenomenology and appreciative inquiry. She has an interdisciplinary research interest in exploring practice.
Andrea Gilkison, MEd (Distinction) PhD candidate
Andrea special interest is in midwifery education. Her PhD thesis explores the use of narrative inquiry in midwifery education.
Jackie Gunn, MA (Hons)
Thesis: Approaching Labour: The 'event' women experience in the final fortnight of pregnancy.
Marion Hunter, MA (Hons)
Thesis: Autonomy, Clinical freedom and Responsibility: The paradoxes of providing intrapartum care in a small maternity unit as compared to a large obstetric hospital.