Pathway to postgraduate studies

Luren Reddy completed his undergraduate training in South Africa completing a 4 year Diploma in Nursing (General, Community, Psychiatry) and Midwifery in 1995 and practiced in the mental health clinical sector as an inpatient and community mental health nurse. Following migration to New Zealand at end of 2000, Luren grasped the education opportunities (offered to registered nurses) in order to further develop and ground his clinical nursing practice. After an initial year of understanding and learning the New Zealand nursing education standards and academic writing style as well as expectations, Luren completed a Post graduate certificate in 2007 and Post graduate diploma with merit in 2009. This was well supported and guided by the University of Auckland and DHB. Luren is currently enrolled on a Master of Nursing programme for 2010.

Current work

'What are the experiences of community mental health nurses whose clients commit suicide?'

Luren is midway through his research topic. The research aims to explore and describe the experiences of community mental health nurses who have experienced the suicide of a client with whom they have been working with. Objectives of the research are to identify and explore the nursing practice experiences of community mental health nurses, recommend strategies of coping to support community mental health nurses who experience a client suicide in the future, inform undergraduate and post graduate mental health nursing education and disseminate the findings to raise organisational awareness of required support. A general qualitative (interpretive) methodology is chosen to explore the experiences of community mental health nurses in the event of a client suicide. The study is a purposeful sampling of community mental health nurses who have had the experience of a client suicide during their community mental health nursing practice in New Zealand. A thematic analysis will be applied to the data collected from interviews. At the time of writing this summary, Luren has completed the study fieldwork and is busy transcribing interviews.

Currently, Luren is working as a nurse educator for the Waikato Distrcit Health Board's mental health and addictions service prepared by post graduate study. Post graduate study has grounded his practice and focused him on evidenced based contemporary nursing practice. Attentiveness of the socio-political climate, media and impact of policy on nursing is another significant aspect that post graduate study has embedded into his practice. Luren researcher’s aspects of nursing care related to clinical practice and actively support nurses new to post graduate study.