MsLaura Brooks

With multiple peer-reviewed publications in highly ranked international journals and invited conference presentations, Dr Brooks has a reputation at the national level and is emerging as an international expert for her research focused on culturally sensitive communication at the end of life in ICU. Laura is an inaugural member of the End-of-Life Advisory Panel for the Australian College of Critical Care Nurses (ACCCN), co-authoring the first Australian national position statement providing 28 practice recommendations to guide the provision of end-of-life care in adult intensive care settings. She was also an invited co-author on two international position statements for the World Federation of Critical Care Nurses. 

The aim of Laura’s PhD was to explore practices related to culturally sensitive communication at the end of life in ICU. With a multimethod design, the PhD included a retrospective descriptive study of deceased patient medical records in four tertiary ICUs, and a modified eDelphi study including expert ICU clinicians recruited from a national sample. The thesis includes five manuscripts published in Q1 journals, inclusive of a concept analysis, systematic review, and three results publications. Laura’s PhD culminated in the development of evidence-based practice recommendations for the provision of culturally sensitive communication at the end of life in the Australian intensive care context.