Caring is a powerful force in healthcare, and when done properly it can save lives and foster healing. Yet when care is inadequate, it can cause harm to patients, healthcare providers, and organisations. While caring is often celebrated as an art, applying scientific inquiry to the practice of caring can be transformational. In this talk, Dr Katie Tunks Leach shares her personal and professional journey into the caring sciences and makes the case for why caring should also be critically examined and cultivated as a scientific discipline.

About the speaker

Dr Katie Tunks Leach started her journey as a registered nurse more than 30 years ago. She specialised in emergency and trauma nursing at hospitals in metropolitan and rural Australia, worked as a pastoral carer in NSW Ambulance, and has now settled into academia. Though she spent much of her career immersed in high-intensity clinical environments, she discovered that her deepest passion lay in authentic, compassionate encounters-with patients, colleagues, and communities. Her work now focuses on advancing the science of caring to ensure that empathy, connection, and evidence-based practice go hand in hand.

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