Lynore Geia The 26th International Nursing Philosophy Conference 2023

Lynore Geia

Dr Lynore Geia – Professor of Nursing and Midwifery Dr Lynore Geia is a Bwgcolman woman, an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander woman from Palm Island, North Queensland, home to the Bwgcolman people. Dr Geia is a grandmother, and community leader. A registered nurse and midwife, Dr Geia’s work as a health professional has spanned 4 decades and is inherently connected with her Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander identity and community leadership and amplifying the voices and roles of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in co-designing and co-producing health reform practices. Dr Geia has extensive practice in rural and remote health and is a strong advocate for Aboriginal & Torres Strait Island community-controlled processes in health care praxis in research, education, and clinical practice for better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Her cultural and community lived experiences underpins and informs her work in nursing and midwifery and other disciplines on local, state, national, and international forums. More recently her work has focused more on a strategic leadership level to challenge Australian health hegemony to reform and embedding cultural safety in education and practice dismantling oppressive practices that become barriers for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people accessing safe health care. In 2020, Dr Geia led a paper with over 100 Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous nursing and midwifery leaders ‘A Unified Call to Action from Australian Nursing and Midwifery Leaders: Ensuring that Black Lives Matter’ seeking collaborative nursing and midwifery education reform for improved care of Australia’s First Nations People. Most notably, on behalf of the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives Dr Geia responded to the recent (August 2022) National Apology from the Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery to Australia’s First Nations Nurses, Midwives, and their community for past and present harms to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Dr Geia’s current scholarship has delved into questioning Australian nursing identity, its philosophical roots and its application to education and practice.