Biography

Dr Carolyn Hastie RM, PhD, RN, IBCLC, Dip Teach, Grad Dip PHC, MPhil (Midwifery research) is a senior lecturer with Griffith University, Australia. She has been at the leading edge of midwifery practice and education for four decades. Among Carolyn’s achievements are: gaining visiting rights to public hospitals in 1984, a first for Australia; starting the first midwives clinic in Australia in 1987, commissioning (2005) and managing a quality award-winning (2007) standalone midwifery service which included the option to birth at home and co-writing the acclaimed Bachelor of Midwifery program (commenced 2011) for the University of Newcastle. As Senior Lecturer in Midwifery for Southern Cross University, Carolyn was awarded a HEPPs grant of $100,000 in December 2013 for a project to develop resources and mentoring to increase retention and success for first-year Indigenous midwifery students. In recognition of her contribution to midwifery and childbearing women’s well-being, she was the recipient of the prestigious NSW Midwife of the Year award 2007-2008. One of Carolyn’s most precious achievements was the Johnson and Johnson Midwife of the Year award in 2012. That award was particularly significant as she was nominated by a woman she cared for during labour and birth and visited postnatally within the private health system. She researches and writes on midwifery related subjects.