Staff Profile

Kim holds the position of Conjoint Professor in the School of Nursing and Midwifery. She was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 1993 and studied restraint minimisation practices in dementia-specific units across the globe. Her qualifications and extensive experience are in the field of social gerontology and dementia. Kim’s interests include collaborative and transformative practice development as a means of implementing and evaluating person-centred approaches to care practice - and particularly, the importance of gathering rigorous practice-based evidence with which to inform evidence-based practice during all research ventures. Kim also has considerable knowledge and experience using quality of life tools to develop better practice in the care of people living with dementia. Kim completed a PhD in 2001 which required continual observation over a period of one year in the clinical field with people with dementia. Observations involved the use of a specific quality of life tool used in research for the first time in Australia. During her research, she evaluated the outcomes of enriching the sensory environment of people with dementia.

Kim's research interests and activities in the speciality field of caring for people living with dementia embrace interdisciplinary collaboration, particularly with psychologists and cover issues including chemosensory loss, sensory enrichment, pain, the person-centred approach, sleep hygiene, depression, behaviour as communication and the language of the profession of gerontology. Kim has studied internationally at the University of Bradford and was the first Australian to complete the Basic User Course in Dementia Care Mapping. She trained several hundred health care professionals across Australia at Basic and Advanced level in the application of this observational tool.

Kim has published book chapters, refereed journal articles and a number of opinion pieces and articles nationally and internationally. She has also written numerous training packages about improving care for poeple with dementia for private industry and government organisations. Kim has been invited to present key note presentations in the USA and the UK and has also presented in several other countries as well as most states of Australia. She has studied and worked with colleagues in 15 countries over a period of nearly 20 years.

She has taught at undergraduate level and at Master’s level and frequently mentors students referred to her for assistance. In 2012, Kim provided pro bono assistance to several industry groups for example, the preparation of a major grant application for the Urban Indigenous Community aged-care (UICAC) Network and allied Indigenous organisations.

Kim values opportunities to undertake HRD thesis examination and her reports are fair and detailed.