Parker, Judith Milburn (1936 - )

Summary

Judith Parker undertook her basic nursing education through the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Associated Hospitals School of Nursing. Following three years as a staff nurse and two years as a nurse educator she left full-time nursing for a number of years to concentrate on raising four children and undertaking undergraduate and postgraduate study at Monash University, supplemented by part-time clinical work. As one of very few PhD prepared nurses working in higher education in nursing in Australia in the early 1980s, she was well positioned to play a leading role in the transfer of nursing education from hospitals to higher education. Subsequently she was extremely influential in the development of higher degrees in nursing and in the establishment of a research base for the discipline in Australia. Her contribution to scholarship and professional development in nursing is highly regarded internationally.

Details

Professor Parker is one of the pre-eminent figures in Australian nursing education and scholarship. In her career as a nursing academic she has been at the helm of a series of major innovations. From the Head of Nursing at the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences, to the Foundation Head and Professor of Nursing at La Trobe University, to the establishment of the School of Nursing at the University of Melbourne, Professor Parker has been a trailblazer, highly regarded and immensely influential in the establishment and development of the discipline of nursing in Australia.

She is esteemed internationally for her work in promoting international nursing, for the quality of her publications and for the role she has played as Founding Editor of the prestigious scholarly journal Nursing Inquiry. She has played a major role locally and internationally on key committees and boards aimed at promoting nursing research and scholarship. She was included in the Victorian Honour Roll for Women 2001 and appointed a member of the General Division of the Order of Australia in 2002. In 2005, she was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Medicine and appointed Professor Emeritus of the University of Melbourne.

Chronology

1954 - 1957

Student nurse at Royal Melbourne and Associated Hospitals School of Nursing

1957 - 1960

Staff Nurse, Royal Melbourne Hospital

1961 - 1962

Nurse Educator, Kingston Centre

1963 - 1971

Clinical nursing, part-time

1971 - 1974

Charge Nurse, part-time; rehabilitation, long-term care, diabetic unit, Caulfield Hospital

1974

Bachelor of Arts (Honours), Major in Sociology, Monash University

1975 - 1978

Tutor part-time, Sociology Department, Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Monash University

1975 - 1979

Recipient Commonwealth Post-Graduate Research Award

1979 - 1982

Lecturer, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences

1981

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Sociology of Health and Illness, Monash University (thesis titled "Cancer Passage: Continuity and Discontinuity in Terminal Illness")

1982 - 1983

Senior Lecturer, Co-ordinator of Bachelor of Applied Science, (Advanced Nursing) Course, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences

1984 - 1987

Head, School of Nursing, Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences

1988 - 1989

Chairperson and Director of Studies, Department of Nursing, La Trobe University

1989 - 1996

Foundation Professor, School of Nursing, La Trobe University

1995 - 2005

Editor-in-Chief, Nursing Inquiry

1996 - 2004

Foundation Professor and Head, School of Nursing, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry & Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne

2001

Cited on the Victorian Honour Roll for Women

2002

Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia

2003 - 2004

Deputy President, Nurses Board of Victoria

2004 - 2005

Visiting Professor, Department of Nursing Studie, The University of Hong Kong

2004 - 2005

Special Professor, School of Nursing, The University of Nottingham

2005 -

Honorary Professor, Department of Nursing Studie, The University of Hong Kong

2005

Emeritus Professor, The University of Melbourne

2005

Doctor of Medicine, (Honorary), The University of Melbourne

Published resources

Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation Exhibitions

• McCarthy, Gavan; Morgan, Helen; Smith, Ailie; van den Bosch, Alan, Where are the Women in Australian Science?, Exhibition of the Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation, First published 2003 with lists updated regulary edn, Australian Science and Technology Heritage Centre, Melbourne, Victoria, 2003, https://eoas.info/exhibitions/wisa/wisa.html. Details

Resources

• 'Parker, J M (1936-)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-526477. Details