Rate My Professor Kaylenne Byrne

Kaylenne Byrne serves as a Lecturer in Nursing and Academic Lead in the School of Health at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Her clinical career spans over 20 years in intensive care, cardio-thoracic intensive care, coronary care, and general surgical nursing across public and private hospitals in Queensland. She has recent experience as a student clinical facilitator, assessing undergraduate nursing students during work-integrated learning placements using the Australian Nursing Standards Assessment Tool. This background informs her teaching in nursing preparation for practice, immersive simulation, and clinical placement courses. Byrne's qualifications include a Bachelor of Nursing Science and Graduate Certificate in Nursing (Intensive Care) from James Cook University, and a Master of Nursing (Clinical Leadership) from the University of the Sunshine Coast. She is a member of the Australian College of Nursing and is planning PhD studies.

Byrne's research focuses on work-integrated learning assessment, immersive simulation, and student evaluation in clinical education settings, including health economics aspects of placements. Key publications include 'Clinical competence, work readiness and cost-effectiveness of undergraduate nursing student clinical placement models: A scoping review protocol' (Nurse Education Today, 2025, with Craswell, Merollini, Bogossian); 'A Third Space Approach to Integrated Academic Student Success Advising' (Student Success, 2024, with Picton et al.); 'Rethinking clinical placements: A response to changing healthcare contexts' (Focus on Health Professional Education, 2025, with Rudland et al.); and conference presentations such as 'Nursing clinical placements: are they cost-effective?' (2024) and 'The Academic Liaison: There to help me succeed' (STARS Conference, 2022). In 2024, she received the Rosemary Norman Research Grant from the Australian Nurses Memorial Centre to support her doctoral research. Her work contributes to optimizing nursing education through enhanced simulation and placement strategies.