Marie Gerdtz

I am a registered nurse, with qualifications and extensive experience in emergency care, health education, evaluation and research. I joined Latrobe University as Dean on Nursing and Midwifery on March 31st, 2025. My academic work involves designing, developing, and evaluating organisational strategies and curricula that support clinical decision making by healthcare staff to optimise the safety and quality of care. The aim of this work is to identify feasible, scalable, and sustainable approaches to organisational change and practice improvement. Supported by both the Australian and Victorian Governments my work has generated solutions for the improvement of hospital triage systems and the prevention and management of acute behavioural disturbance in hospitalised patients. Australia is at the forefront of international policy in these areas. My scholarship has been a key driver of knowledge generation about how to address these clinical problems feasibly and sustainably in practice. I have authored over 130 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters and reports and supervised 14 Graduate Research candidates to completion.