Eileen Petrie

Nursing

Dr Eileen Petrie

RN, GradDipCPN, MNS, PhD

Lecturer in Nursing
Albury / Wodonga
Building 673 Room 328

Eileen commenced her nursing career as a generalist at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne and followed through with her Basic Psychiatric Nursing qualifications at Mayday Hills Hospital, Beechworth, Victoria. Over the years since qualifying as a Registered Psychiatric Nurse and working for 10 years in the psychiatric clinical setting, Eileen has attained the degrees in Post Graduate Diploma in Community Psychiatric Nursing (La Trobe University), Master of Nursing Science (La Trobe University), and PhD (Adelaide University).

Eileen has been in Academia since 2002 where she was a Senior Lecturer with La Trobe University, Albury/Wodonga campus and more recently as Assistant Professor with the University of Canberra. Eileen's roles within the University sector are: Clinical Director of Nursing, Masters Coursework Coordinator, Honours Coordinator, Post Graduate Mental Health Subject Coordinator, Coordinator Bachelor of Nursing Mental health Major: Promoting Mental Health; Child and Adolescent Nursing and Psychiatric Geriatric Nursing. Her lecturing component includes lecturing into all levels of Undergraduate, Post Graduate and Higher Degree levels.

Eileen's area of research expertise is in Action Research and examined stressors in rural and remote community mental health teams which contribute to workplace burnout using this methodology for her PhD.

Eileen has contributed to research, teaching and learning in the tertiary education context in a number of ways. This has included Universities in Vitoria and the Australian Capital Territory.
These are reflected in:

  • Convening and teaching into courses at the undergraduate, postgraduate and higher-degree-by-research levels, across a range of subject areas;
  • This has involved a range of teaching modalities: online, face-to-face, and flexible modes of delivery;
  • Reviewing, evaluating, revising, rejuvenating, and developing a variety of curricula, to meet the requirements of the university and accrediting and/or regulatory authorities;
  • Leading and supporting the professional development of academic and clinical colleagues, locally, nationally, and internationally;
  • Actively collaborating with academic and industry colleagues, non-government organisations, consumers, carers, and other community stakeholders, to ensure the relevance and authenticity of her teaching.
  • A hallmark of Eileen's contribution to higher education is her co-authorship of a highly successful textbook: An Introduction to Primary Health Care (1st Edition). This text has met the strong demand for an introductory, interdisciplinary text in the area of Primary Health Care and has been released in Europe, England, New Zealand and Australia to support teaching and learning in undergraduate health care professionals in nursing, midwifery, and allied health.

2013 - Current

Action Research

Improved Best Practice Care for Related Mental Health Needs of Aged Care Residents Within Community and Residential Aged Care Facilities.

2012 - Current

Mixed Methods

Queensland floods: experience of nurses who assisted.

2011 – 2012

Quantitative Research

Reducing harm from alcohol. Two birds with one stone: brief intervention for hazardous and/or harmful alcohol consumption during sexual health consultations with rural young people.

2008 - 2009

Mixed Methods

Outcomes from the development, trial and evaluation of a mental health screening and referral clinical pathway for community nursing care.

Partnership: Department of Veteran Affairs

Commonwealth Funding

2008 - 2009

Mixed Methods

The PACT Project: improving communication at handover.

Partnership: Australian Commission on Safety in Health Care & Ramsay Group Albury/Wodonga Private Hospital

Commonwealth Funding

2006 – 2008

Action Research

Action Research in Preventing Workplace Burnout In Rural Remote Community Mental Health Nursing

PhD Thesis

1998 - 1999

Action Research

Action Research in Workplace Burnout Prevention

Master's Thesis

Australian Publishers Association Award

Best text in the tertiary (wholly Australian) teaching and learning category

Edward, K-L., Munro, I., Robins, A., Welch, A. (Eds) (2011). Mental Health Nursing Dimensions Of Praxis (2nd Ed). Melbourne, Oxford.