ABOUT JANE HUTCHENS
Jane Hutchens has contributed chapter 13 – Pregnancy and Labour to Advanced Clinical Naturopathic Medicine.
Jane has over 30 years’ experience in healthcare, as a registered nurse and a naturopath. In addition to her clinical practice Jane has written chapters in textbooks, and lectured and developed course material in both nursing and complementary health. Jane has also provided consultancy and facilitated residential programs to non-government organisations and been a manager in the NGO and public sector.
Jane started her career in health as a student nurse in the 80s and it fast became apparent to her that something was missing. A few key gaps were; looking at the whole picture of a person’s life, recognition that stress was a significant contributing factor to the ill-health of patients and that wasn’t really being addressed, and that hospital-based care was essential but surely there was more that could be done to avoid needing the hospital in the first place. What evolved from there was a growing interest in Public Health and the social and environmental determinants of health, and a re-imagining of roles within healthcare, with the patient not being the passive recipient of care, but rather the equal partner actively engaged in care. Her naturopathic practice focuses on women’s reproductive health across the lifespan, with a goal of providing compassionate care that provides the information and support to enable women to achieve the outcomes that they desire.
Her work has largely been in reproductive health – in gynaecology, gynae-oncology, family planning and her naturopathic practice. Moving to the Blue Mountains she spent several years working part-time in the local hospital serving an older population, igniting her interest in ageing (apart from her own lived experience of it!). The underlying principles were the same in women’s health and working with older people – equity, respect, autonomy, knowledge and support.
She is a registered nurse and has a BHSc, MSc (RHHG) and is a public health PhD candidate researching cardiac disease in pregnancy and the postpartum.
