ProfSamantha Jakimowicz

Samantha has an excellent record in teaching and learning as illustrated through her leadership in teaching practice and scholarship, innovative approaches, together with enhanced student learning and improved student satisfaction.

Samantha has developed and delivered undergraduate and postgraduate clinical nursing courses and made significant contributions to education projects such as Distress Screening for Men with Prostate Cancer. She has partnered with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia to develop a suite of e-learning modules for mandatory training for Prostate Cancer Specialist Nurses around Australia.

Samantha has woven her interest in wellbeing, compassion and empathy in healthcare through her education scholarship by introducing innovative and academically rigorous programs such as the Virtual Empathy Museum and Schwartz Rounds.

The Virtual Empathy Museum is a digital educational resource supported by funding from an ATN Grant ($35,000). As an active member of the Empathy Initiative Research Group, Samantha developed a number of resources, for example a digital story based on the experiences of a young homeless man and his interactions with the healthcare system. This resource was created for inclusion in lecture and tutorial materials in undergraduate nursing, emphasising the need for empathic care considering the stigma and hesitance at accessing a system where he had been mistreated previously. These resources are aimed at ‘feed-forward’ learning, as the VEM is an open access resource and now used nationally and internationally within healthcare and education settings.

Samantha introduced Schwartz Rounds™ to healthcare students at the University of Technology Sydney, the first in Australia. This reflective practice initiative used in the UK and US aimed at enhancing healthcare professional wellbeing and patient experience contributed positively to student learning outcomes and to the educational development of students, while also upskilling academics. This inter-professional educational enterprise was in answer to student feedback indicating that some students were struggling with the emotional toll that sometimes comes with caring for the ill and exposure to the healthcare setting.

Samantha, with the Virtual Empathy Museum team were awarded the Faculty Learning and Teaching award in 2019.