White leaves nursing school for policy work

An admired academic, researcher and nurse is leaving her university post to pursue national and international policy matters.

Professor Jill White, dean of Sydney Nursing School, will finish up her tenure at the University of Sydney on January 21.

White, who has worked at Sydney Uni for seven years after a 10-year stint at the University of Technology, Sydney, will next year move on to focus on improving nursing’s voice in health policy at a local, national and international level. She is excited about the next step in her career, and the role she can play in helping shape the future of the profession.

“The future will undoubtedly be that nurses will be working predominantly in the community and in people's homes," White said. "They will be leaders in the management of chronic conditions and they will be vital to [people's ability] to die as peacefully as possible in their own homes.

“The research nurses are doing is also likely to change the face of service delivery. We will be able to demonstrate better models of care that are more appropriate for patients and their families.”

White will spend the first six months of next year in Geneva, working between the International Council of Nursing (ICN) and the World Health Organization, looking at nursing's influence on policy.

She will then fly to the United States, where she will work with nursing scholars at the University of Pennsylvania who have been influential in elevating the profession's voice in health policy in the US.

During this time, White will also continue working towards her master's of health policy, which she says enables her to “put a better theoretical framing around 30 years of interest in the politics of policy”.