Karin FisherView profile
Lecturer
Dr. Karin Fisher is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Newcastle's Department of Rural Health within the College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing. With over 25 years of nursing experience, she transitioned to academia after completing her PhD at the University of New England, focusing on rural health, sexually transmitted infections, and health equity. Dr. Fisher holds a PhD from the University of New England. Her clinical background includes positions as Clinical Nurse Consultant at Hunter New England Health Service (1993-1997), Public Health Officer (1997-2007), Acting Director of Population Health & Planning (2002-2004), and Senior Research Officer (2008-2010) at Hunter New England Local Health Network. Dr. Fisher's research focuses on health services research, primary health care, public health issues, interprofessional collaboration, and health workforce issues with particular emphasis on equity perspectives. Her work explores Population Health issues, Sexually transmitted infections, Inequalities, Equity issues, Health service access, Rural workforce issues, and Difficult to access populations. She employs qualitative methodologies including Grounded theory and Mixed methods in her research. Her recent publications (2020-2024) demonstrate a strong focus on rural health workforce development, Indigenous health programs, telehealth service delivery, and interprofessional education. There's a clear trajectory in her work toward understanding how to improve health outcomes in rural and remote settings, with increasing attention to culturally safe practices for Aboriginal communities and innovative approaches to health professional education. Dr. Fisher has secured over $176,000 in research funding across 5 grants. Current projects include 'Out of sight, out of mind?' examining videoconferencing in rural healthcare education, exploration of rural palliative care models, and 'Yearning to yarn' focused on Aboriginal ways of knowing and learning. She currently supervises 2 students (one PhD and one Honours student) and has previously supervised 2 PhD students to completion. Her supervision focuses on topics related to Aboriginal health, nursing workforce, and graduate outcomes tracking. She works as part of a multidisciplinary team at the University of Newcastle that includes medicine, radiography, physiotherapy, nutrition and dietetics, pharmacy, occupational therapy, Indigenous health care, speech pathology and mental health professionals.











