Dr Heather Tan

PhD. MGrief & P.C.Couns; BSc; Grad Dip Ed; CCPE.

Research Fellow

Phone: +61 3 9904 4502 Fax: +61 3 9904 4402 Email: heather.tan@monash.edu

Background

Heather has a background in education, pastoral care and counselling with a particular focus on palliative care for the last 8 years. Her PhD thesis (2008) investigated the implementation of a family meeting model as an instrument of psycho-social and spiritual care of palliative patients and their family members.  She joined the PCRT team in 2008 as a research fellow and project officer for the “After Dark” study.

Research Interests

• Spiritual and psycho-social issues in palliative care
• Carer and family issues

Accredited Level 2 Supervisor

Successful Grant Awards

The challenge of the needs based model in community palliative care – the  evaluation of a triage tool. Faculty of Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences: Early Career Development Grant 2010. Heather Tan.  $35,000.

Publications

Journal Articles

Tan, H., Wutthilert, C. & O'Connor, M. (2011). Spirituality and Quality of Life in Older People with Chronic Illness in Thailand. Progress in Palliative Care. 19(4), 177-184.

Tan, H., Wilson, A., Olver, I., Barton, C. (2011). The Family Meeting Addressing Spiritual Needs in a Palliative Care Setting: Some Practical Implications. Progress in Palliative Care. 19(2) available on-line April 26 2011

Tan, H.M., Wilson, A., Olver, I., Barton, C. (2011). The experience of palliative patients and their families of a family meeting utilised as an instrument for spiritual and psychosocial care:A qualitative study. BMC Palliative Care. 10(7). doi: 10.1186/1472-684X-10-7.

Bloomer, M., Tan, H. & Lee, S. (2010). End of life care: the importance of advance care planning in primary care.  Australian Family Physician. 39(10), 734-737.

Tan, H., Wilson, A., Olver, I. & Barton, C.  (2010). Recruiting palliative patients for a large qualitative study: some ethical considerations and staff dilemmas.  Explore: Journal of Science and Healing. 6(3),159-165.

Tan, H. Wilson, A. & Olver, I. (2009). Ricoeur's theory of interpretation: An instrument for data interpretation in Hermeneutic Phenomenology. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 8(4). epub

Tan, H., O'Connor, M., Miles, G., Klein, B., Schattner, P. (2009). GP and nurses' perceptions of how after hours care for people receiving palliative care at home could be improved: a mixed methods study. BMC Palliative Care, 8(3), epub.

Zeitz, K., Tan, H., Zeitz, C. (2009) Crowd behaviour at mass gatherings: A literature Review. Prehospital and disaster Medicine. 24(1), 32-38.

Ceichomski, L.,Tan, H.,O'Connor, M., Miles, G., Klein, B., Schattner, P. (2009) After hours palliative care provision in rural and urban Victoria, Australia. Asia Pacific Journal of Health Management. 4(1), 57-63.

Tan, H., Braunack-Mayer, A. & Bilby, J. (2005). The Impact of Hospice Environment on Patient Spiritual Expression. Oncology Nursing Forum. 32(5), 1049-1054.

Books & Book Chapters

O’Connor, M., Griffiths, D., Ives, G., Newton, J., Tan, H. (eds) (2009) From Birth to Death: clinical nursing and midwifery research across the lifespan. Melbourne, Australia. Monash University.

Recoche, K., O'Connor, M., Lee, S., Tan, H. & Griffiths, D. (2009). Death, Dying and Loss. In J. Dempsey, J. French & S. Hillege (Eds.), Fundamentals of Nursing & Midwifery: A person-centred approach to care (pp484-509). Broadway, NSW: Lippincott Williams and Wilkins