Kerry Welch
Adult Branch Nursing Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences
Contact
Biography
- Registered nurse..
- Wide variety of clinical of experiences, ranging from managing a clinical team within Intensive Care settings, to autonomous practice as a Practice nurse in Primary Care.
- Currently I am employed as a lecturer in Health and Social Care for the University of Nottingham, and where I also hold a leadership role in the organisation.
- Experience with curriculum development and module leadership and convener .
- I have a proven track record of success within both the clinical and educational environments.
- My specialist areas include, Medical Ethics, Professional Accountability Intensive Care Nursing and Primary Care and health promotion.
- Currently studying for a PhD, researching End-of-Life decision making.
- Member of the Royal College of Nursing Ethics Committee.
- Post-graduate representative for the Association for the Study of Death in Society (ASDS)
Expertise Summary
Medical Ethics, professionalism and accountability.
End of life decision making.
Teaching Summary
- Teach across the full 3 years of the programme to all branches of nursing.
Content includes:
Health Promotion and Public Health
Accountability, professionalism
Law and ethics
End of life
Communication
Portfolio development and personal development
Research Summary
Project title
Exploring the attitudes of patients and their significant others towards the use of an Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT) at the end-of-life.
Outline
There is an assumption in society that death can be avoided, postponed and resisted (Clark,2002), and where death is a medical failure rather than an important aspect of life.
The increasing medicalisation of death and the consequences that has for the dying is an area which has been greatly discussed. Illich (2003) in his publication the Medical Nemesis discusses that by renouncing autonomy to medicine in the pursuit of cheating death can only serve to damage the health of that person and result in a bad death.
To have a good death would seem to be synonymous with having awareness of death (Sandman, 2005). So are ADRT's the answer, or at least some way towards an answer? Perkins (2007) comments that advance directives/decisions symbolise a degree of commitment towards acknowledging patients as partners in care planning and as empowered individuals. This is an important factor when considering end-of-life care, as physicians will often misperceive their patients' preferences (Schneiderman, Kaplan and Rosenberg et al, 1997). As physicians will often involve relatives/significant others in these important discussions at the end-of-life, do those significant others contribute to the misperception of the patients preferences?
Recent Publications
WELCH,K and BARKSBY, J., 2011. Supporting a client in Intensive Care. Learning Disability in Practice. 14(8), 14-17
WELCH,K, 2011. Exploring the attitudes of patients and their significant others towards the use of an Advance Decision to Refuse Treatment (ADRT) at the end-of-life. In: Death, Dying and Disposal (DDD10) Conference.
WELCH,K and DAVIS,P, 2011. Stimulating Scholarship. In: Teaching Innovation and Development.
2011. Measuring Body Mass Index CETL. . 10/18/2011 00:00:00