
Helps students see the bigger picture.
Dr. David Healee serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Nursing at the University of Otago, Christchurch, within the Centre for Postgraduate Nursing Studies. He possesses extensive qualifications, including ONC (UK), ADN, BA (Canterbury), MA (Appld Nsg) (Vic), C.T.T (AUT), DHSc (AUT), and RN registration. His career encompasses clinical nursing practice, postgraduate studies in the United Kingdom and New Zealand, and over two decades of academic lecturing, with more than 12 years in undergraduate programmes and 8 years in postgraduate programmes. As paper convener for research methods for nurses, he supervises theses, dissertations, and practice projects, and acts as an examiner for doctoral and master's level research theses.
Dr. Healee's research specializations centre on the health and recovery of older adults, emphasizing how they manage recovery from physical illness or injury; clinical leadership within the nursing profession; and transcultural nursing. He utilizes grounded theory methodology, particularly Glaserian grounded theory or thematic analysis for smaller projects. His doctoral thesis, titled 'Restoring: a grounded theory of recovery,' investigates how older adults recover from hip fracture, focusing on regaining physical and social functioning while reasserting control over their recovery journey. Additional projects include qualitative interviews with Japanese nurses working in New Zealand, exploring their experiences and navigation of cultural differences to find a professional voice. Key publications include Che Arr, F., Hocking, C., & Healee, D. (2024). Gaining by losing: The daily living experience of international female doctoral students in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Occupational Science, 31(3), 530-543; Florencio, F., Healee, D., Ratahi, T., Wiki, N., & McKenna, B. (2022). Tū Tahanga: A qualitative descriptive study of a culturally adapted violence prevention programme in a forensic mental health service. International Journal of Forensic Mental Health, 21(2), 185-193; Nadeem, A., & Healee, D. (2021). Utility of the Waterlow scale in acute care settings: A literature review. Kai Tiaki Nursing Research, 12(1), 44-48; Gordge, B., Seaton, P., & Healee, D. (2024). Nursing perspectives on the use of a continuous glucose monitoring system in ICU and its transferability to a ward setting. Proceedings of the 47th New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes Annual Scientific Meeting; and Gordge, B., Healee, D., & Seaton, P. (2023). The utilisation of continuous glucose monitoring in ICU and its transferability to the ward setting: A nursing perspective. Proceedings of the 46th New Zealand Society for the Study of Diabetes Annual Scientific Meeting. He has supervised multiple Master of Nursing Science research reports on topics such as nursing staff retention, student clinical placement experiences, and advanced nursing practices.
