Dr Philip Esterhuizen

Profile

Philip Esterhuizen, RN, BA (Cur), MScN, PhD (Lecturer, Adult Nursing, School of Healthcare, University of Leeds)

Philip returned to the University of Leeds as a Lecturer in September 2012 after an absence of 4 years. After completing his hospital-based nursing education in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1978, Philip specialised in operating room technique before coming to Europe. He started work in the Netherlands in 1980 and this led to operating room specialisations in Neurosurgical and Cardio-thoracic areas before returning to ward-based nursing in 1988 where he specialised in neurological nursing and combined this for a period of 5 years with palliative home care. During this time he obtained a BA degree in nursing (majors in nursing education and professional practice and ethics of nursing) via the University of South Africa’s distance learning programme and a diploma in nursing education from the Netherlands.

He worked for 10 years as a clinically based nurse educator in an Amsterdam hospital during which time he became associated with the International Association for Human Caring (IAHC) and very interested in reflective practice. His affiliation with the IAHC had a major impact on his work as an educator and resulted in him being instrumental in developing a clinical curriculum based on reflective practice, hosting an international conference on reflective practice, publications and a Master’s research (University of Cardiff, Wales) into how registered nurses integrate theory into practice using confluent education as a theoretical framework. In his PhD research (Bournemouth University) he explored the socialization process of student nurses using ethnomethodological and autoethnographic approaches.

His links with international organisations related to care and reflective practice provided Philip with great support and inspiration in the work that he was doing with a philosophy lecturer around nursing ethics and moral decision making with regard to end of life issues. In his work as a Senior Lecturer in the United Kingdom (2002-2007) he worked with nurses of all levels and had the opportunity to teach and facilitate in a wide range of areas and settings. By incorporating personal philosophies of care and caring into the facilitated sessions Philip was able to support reflection, promote awareness and stimulate the development of personal caring attitudes in relation to the individual practitioner’s daily experiences. During an appointment as Senior Lecturer in the Netherlands (2007-2012) Philip was involved in curriculum development for a co-operative (Apprentice) nursing degree at Bachelor’s level. With regard to teaching, he worked predominantly with undergraduates with whom he stimulated self-awareness, narrative and self-reflection via the subject areas of palliative care nursing, ethics, qualitative research and critical reasoning.

Professional activities include:

• Membership of Sigma Nursing Honours Society: Beta Nu Chapter, North Carolina, USA and Phi Mu Chapter, Bournemouth, United Kingdom. He has been an elected Board member of Phi Mu Chapter since 2013.
• Membership of the International Association of Human Caring (IAHC) for which he was an elected Board Member 2007-2009.

Philip is an editorial reviewer for:

• International Journal for Human Caring (USA)
• Journal of Research in Nursing (UK)
• Journal of Nursing Management (UK)
• Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing? (UK)
• Journal of Mixed Methods Research (UK)
• BMC Medical Education (UK)
• International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare (UK)
• International Journal of Qualitative Methods (Canada)

Editor/author:

• Learning Matters: Reflective Practice in Nursing, 4th edition (Sage)

Responsibilities

• Associate Director of Student Education Curriculum and Assessment

Qualifications

• PhD
• MScN
• DNEd
• BA(Cur)
• Registered Nurse (adult)

Professional memberships

• NMC
• RCN
• Sigma Nursing Honours Society
• International Association of Human Caring

Student education

I teach across Undergraduate and Post-Graduate programmes and am involved in multiple modules, mainly in relation to healthcare ethics, professional practice and research. I lead on the Support for Learning in Pracice education.