Define ‘specialist’ – Dean
Whitireia health faculty dean Kathy Holloway has seemingly endless reasons to celebrate.
After five years of hard slog she was awarded her PHD last October, she was promoted to head Whitireia’s health department in March, and her doctoral research looks set to change the health scene in New Zealand and worldwide.
The 51-year-old Whitby resident is at the zenith of her long and varied career, but is always looking for new peaks to scale.
‘‘I have a very low tolerance for boredom and I like to be challenged.’’
Ms Holloway’s PHD, awarded by Sydney’s University of Technology, proposed a framework to decide whether health professionals are ‘‘specialists’’ or not – something which surprisingly doesn’t exist at present.
‘‘When you get to call yourself a specialist is reasonably ad hoc,’’ Ms Holloway says.
Practical application was the point of Ms Holloway’s doctorate.
‘‘It’s no good doing something if no- one uses it,’’ she says. ‘‘Specialty groups in New Zealand really need to grab hold of it.’’
While her framework might need testing and refining, Ms Holloway is convinced of its merit.
‘‘I think it’s great, but I wrote it, so I would!’’ she says. ‘‘I spent five years of my life on it.’’
In amongst promoting her research domestically and inter- nationally, Ms Holloway has her hands full overseeing 300 students training to be nurses, paramedics, social workers and mental health support workers.
On top of that, she is a fellow of the College of Nurses Aotearoa, sits on a clinical training agency nursing advisory committee, and is setting up a New Zealand branch of Sigma Theta Tau International, the Honour Society of Nursing.
Indulging a long-term interest in the online world, Ms Holloway also writes an internet column for magazine Nursing Review. While living in the UK in 2000 she completed a postgraduate certificate in the subject.
Health and the web naturally marry, Ms Holloway says.
‘‘After porn, health is the most queried search term on Google.’’
Born and bred in Masterton, Ms Holloway started her career in 1980 at Wellington Polytechnic with a nursing diploma, then moved to Sydney for a nursing degree and then a masters degree in health science and nursing education. She lived in Australia and England for 14 years, working in cardiac care and as an educator.
In 1993 Ms Holloway became a tutor at her first polytechnic, now Massey Wellington, then moved to Whitireia in 1996.
It seems she hasn’t stopped for a breath since.
‘‘That’s what I like about my job, it’s not boring,’’ she says.