Professor Linda Shields

Professor Linda Shields is a Honorary Professor in the School of Medicine at The University of Queensland, Australia.She previously worked at Charles Sturt University. Her research interests are in the care of children in health services, particularly in rural and remote areas.

Professor Shields was the first nurse in Australia to be awarded a higher doctorate. She was awarded a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Queensland for her work on family-centred care in paediatrics. In 2015 she was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing in Washington in recognition of her research in how to improve care for children and their families - an honour that's not usually bestowed on those outside the United States.

Linda is passionate about the way we care for children and their families, and about what it is like for children to live with a chronic illness when they live in rural and remote areas, a long way from treatment centres that are usually in the big cities. Her research reveals what is good about our health systems, and where improvements can be made.

Linda has also researched the role of nurses in Nazi Germany, which shows that despite nursing's rating as the "most trusted profession", in that era, nursing's ethics were turned around and nurses actively, and voluntarily, killed their patients, believing that they were doing the right thing. Other history research includes investigations into the life of Australian Dame Maud McCarthy, who was Matron-in-Chief, British Expeditionary Forces, France and Flanders in World War One.

Linda is also involved in inventions that can have a huge impact on health care, such as developing a new way of disposing of hospital waste so it doesn't have to go in landfill - as it does at present.