Integration of health humanities into midwifery programs at the University of Newcastle, Australia - a piece from our 2026 Health Humanities Award Recipients
By: Michelle Gray, Katharine Gillet, Nicole Hainsworth, Elysse Prussing, Nasrin Javid, Allison Cummins.
The midwifery team at the University of Newcastle delivers an undergraduate and postgraduate midwifery curriculum underpinned by a clearly articulated humanistic philosophy. The midwifery team has made meaningful contributions to contemporary knowledge in midwifery education and research, particularly in the field of health humanities. Several members have collectively contributed to the creation of new knowledge outputs and demonstrated specialist expertise in the scholarship of humanistic health education, midwifery philosophy, creative inquiry and innovative learning resources. Their scholarly work advances knowledge at the intersection of midwifery, education, and the health humanities, contributing both empirically and conceptually to the field.
The humanistic philosophy is systematically embedded within program courses. It draws on heutagogy, student‑centred adult learning pedagogy, and relational ways of knowing that explicitly position midwifery as both an art and a science. The heutagogical approach, combined with educational initiatives, has enhanced student engagement, their reflective capacity, and professional identity formation. Students consistently report that humanities‑informed learning supports deeper understanding of midwifery philosophy, relationship‑based care, and the emotional realities of practice.
Collectively, these approaches aim to cultivate transformational learning. Health humanities are integrated throughout clinical and theoretical course content. In theoretical courses, academics engage students with poetry, life writing, memoirs, women’s birth stories, and other narratives of lived experience as legitimate sources of knowledge. This intentional integration of arts and humanities humanises learning, deepens ethical awareness, and supports students to develop as reflective, compassionate, and critically conscious midwives. These approaches move beyond technical competence, supporting the development of emotional literacy, empathy, and critical reflexivity while fostering personal and professional growth.
Clinical midwifery experience education involves clinical supervision, reflective practice, and relationship‑based care consistently foregrounded as foundational professional practice. Clinical supervision facilitates reflective practice, and relationship‑based care is consistently foregrounded as a foundational professional principle. Reflection on women's experiences assists students to reflect on their relevance to midwifery practice; explore their own identities, values, sense of belonging, and strengths. Scaffolded health humanities initiatives of ‘Healthy Conversations' guide clinical supervision, which is incorporated into all courses that prepare students for clinical practice.
Humanities‑informed pedagogies directly support professional practice by strengthening students’ communication skills, emotional intelligence, and capacity for reflective supervision. This is done through role play/improv activities such as enacting delivering bad news and caring for families after perinatal loss supporting students learn to engage meaningfully with women’s stories, navigate complex emotional encounters, and advocate for humane care within systems often dominated by biomedical imperatives. This approach contributes to safer practice, professional resilience, and reduced moral distress. Humanistic pedagogies have strengthened students’ ability to sit with uncertainty, complexity, and ethical tension.
