Gender and personal breastfeeding experience of rural GP registrars in Australia - a qualitative study of their effect on breastfeeding attitudes and knowledge

Wendy Brodribb

qualifications: MBBS

contribution: original concept, designed the project, literature review, collected data, wrote the first draft, statistical analysis

position: Postgraduate student

Australia

I am a PhD candidate at the University of Queensland researching the breastfeeding skills and knowlede of GP registrars. My main interests are breastfeeding and how medical practitioners can assist breastfeeding women.

Claire Jackson

qualifications: FRACGP

position: Professor of General Practice and Primary Health Care

Tony Fallon

qualifications: PhD

position: Research fellow

Australia

Prof Desley Hegney

qualifications: PhD

position: Professor and director

Australia

Professor Desley Hegney is a Professor of Nursing at the Research Division, Central Queensland University, Brisbane Campus She was the inaugural President of the Association for Australian Rural Nurses and was the inaugural Editor of the Australian Journal of Rural Health (1992 - 2002). Her research has concentrated on nursing workforce issues in primary health care including the first published research on the role and function of the rural nurse in Australia. She is extensively published in rural nursing workforce issues, compassion fatigue and resilience. She has also undertaken research into the role of the registered and enrolled nurse employed in general practice.

Other research into health service delivery models in rural Australia have included the effectiveness of a community health nurse in the ED to prevent re-presentations of elderly patients; infant feeding support services in rural Queensland; the effectiveness of an outreach palliative care service in rural Queensland; and the use of a triage tool to standardise triage assessment by nurses in the ED.