During an academic career spanning 33 years, UNE’s Professor of Nursing Kim Usher has supervised 47 higher degree research (HDR) students from all over the world. Many have become life-long friends and respected colleagues.
She watches the progress of each and every one of them with interest.
“I love working with students,” Kim says. “I love research and being able to pass on that passion; to see students grow personally and to develop as scholars. That’s the most important thing to me.”
Now Kim’s sharing her wisdom through a new book co-authored with Debra Jackson (formerly an Adjunct Professor of UNE and now a Professor with the University of Sydney) and Patricia Davidson (Vice-Chancellor of the University of Wollongong), who together have well over 100 successful doctoral completions and more than 1,000 publications. Titled Successful Doctoral Training in Nursing and Health Sciences: A Guide for Supervisors, Students and Advisors, it recognises the relatively young tradition of doctoral training among nurses and health scientists and highlights the importance of “professional relationships within which both parties can thrive, and … withstand the years of critique needed for doctoral work”.
As well as describing the scientific, research and education skills required of supervisors, the book shares the stories of students, many of them UNE graduates.
“I wanted readers to see that having a HDR student is like no other teaching,” Kim says.
It goes beyond the regular fortnightly catch-up; you make a commitment to the student and share their journey. I make my students a priority and I’m available to them any time.
When COVID hit, Kim’s concern that some of her students “were alone in small rooms and apartments” grew into a Monday morning Zoom meeting, to which all the students she supervises or co-supervises are invited. It’s not compulsory to tune in, but most students do, even today.
“It has developed into a community of practice,” Kim says. “We have great scholarly conversations and often debate very philosophical things. The students have become great buddies and now teach each other, sharing coffee and conversations offline. New students are reporting that their commencement has not been nearly as rough due to the Monday morning group.”
Not all the students Kim supervisors are nursing students either. “I have supervised doctors, social workers, psychologists, sociologists and paramedics,” she says.
In a good supervisor-student relationship, two likeminded people with a goal in mind undertake research that will bring a benefit of some kind to future healthcare.
Researcher Sally Bristow had Kim as her PhD supervisor and now collaborates with her on occasion. “She is an amazing supervisor, who thinks of you as a person and an individual,” Sally says. “We all struggle, but Kim comes to the relationship with empathy, years of experience and warmth. She is one of the top professors in nursing in Australia and some of her students have gone on to become the best in their fields. Kim sees us warts and all – and, believe me, there are lots of tears that go into a PhD – and I would always have a relationship with Kim.”
And Kim wouldn’t want it any other way. “Many students send me messages every now and then, to keep me up-to-date with what is happening with their family, life and job,” she says. “I love seeing them do well in the world – like Professor Roianne West (CEO of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives), Professor Rhonda Wilson at the University of Newcastle, as well as the many students who have returned to important clinical work. I enjoy being a part of their life.”
