About Wendy White

BACKGROUND

Wendy is an Independent Consultant, qualified Educator and Advanced Practice Nurse based in New South Wales (NSW), Australia with over 30 years' experience.

She has dedicated her professional practice to the evolving specialty of wound management – skin safety & injury prevention, optimising acute injury outcomes, minimising the risk and improving the management of hard-to-heal, healable wounds, symptom control for unhealable wounds, the lived experience and person focused care.

In 2007, Wendy relocated from Victoria, and launched her private practice after two decades of wound specific clinical, academic, educational roles & experience.

Past wound specific clinical & educational roles include lead -senior nurse in two of the early ‘wound clinics’ established in Melbourne, Victoria (early 1990's) along with Nurse Consultant roles in chronic wound research projects and interdisciplinary chronic wound services.

Her skin & wound specialty experiences are wide and varied, including wound consultancy, education and post graduate course advisory roles with the Wound Foundation of Australia and Monash University and supporting Industry with Clinical Consultancy & Educator roles throughout the South Pacific region.

KEY POSITIONS

Wendy White WoundCare

Director, Independent Consultant & Educator (2007 – current)

Wound Foundation of Australia Monash University

Clinical Nurse Consultant, Educator & Lecturer Monash University

Coordinator, Clinical Advisor, Expert Reviewer,

Moderator Post Graduate Studies in Wound Care

(M a n a g e m e n t o f C h r o n i c Wo u n d s & D r e s s i n g s)

Melbourne Health

Clinical Nurse Consultant – Chronic Wound Service

Industry (South Pacific)

Clinical Consultant & Educator

Wound Management Clinic PANCH & The Northern Hospital

Clinical Nurse Consultant & Manager Victorian Plastic Surgery Unit Wound Clinic

EDUCATOR / INVITED SPEAKER

Wendy is considered an inspirational & motivational speaker, educator and workshop facilitator presenting at regional, state, national and international wound conferences, symposiums and seminars.

After attending the inaugural World Union, Wound Healing Society Congress (WUWHS 2000 Melbourne) she has presented at all subsequent meetings 2004 (Paris), 2008 (Toronto), 2012 (Yokohama), 2016 (Florence) with 2020 (Abu Dhabi) presentations cancelled due to COVID-19.

In 2014 she partnered and piloted an online, live or on demand educational initiative called ‘WOUNDjuice’ providing convenient and accessible CPD opportunities, through a variety of devices including laptops, smart phones and tablets. The educational opportunities and resources offered continue to be developed and refined to meet the needs of clinicians and facilities. The Wounded® Learning Centre online platform (2018) continues to evolve offering online and hybrid learning opportunities which include the ''Talking Debridement Master Course: To the Cutting Edge & Beyond'', along with customised Learning PODS.

CLINICAL CONSULTANCY

Clinical consultancy is currently provided for organisational partners based on service agreements, along with on-demand services. Telehealth investment has provided enhanced support to regional and rural settings providing timely and effective consultancy for aged care organisations, consumers and their teams. Wendy continues to advocate for compliant forms of communication via her customised Client Portal adhering to current government privacy requirements. In 2018 she has invested in building her support team and providing access to technology to meet the growing demands and continue to improve service provision.

Past clinical services (2012) included the developed a nurse led, specialty wound service working in collaboration with GPs in the primary health care setting. For 4 years, she provided weekly onsite, advanced practice services inclusive of low frequency ultrasound and conservative sharp wound debridement. Wendy expanded her professional services (2016-2018) by offering independent private consultancy and procedural rooms.

SUPPORT / CONSULTANCY

Wendy continues to provide organisational support (in a variety of healthcare, residential settings) as an invited expert to review current practices, policy / procedure and skin & wound care formularies. Safe quality care provision that is comprehensive, person focused, systematic, consistent, effective and efficient is promoted. Maintaining skin health and safety, wound prevention, symptom control and optimising outcomes while measuring outcomes for healable and non-healable wound types is emphasised.

PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION & SERVICE

Wendy is a recipient of an Wounds Australia Fellowship (Previously Australian Wound Management Association – AWMA 2012) in recognition of her contribution to clinical practice, education, research and leadership in wound management throughout Australia, and the Asia Pacific region.

Wendy is a past executive state committee member & President Victorian Australian Wound Management Association (AWMA) & New South Wales Vice President. She has served on the National AWMA Education & Professional Development subcommittee for several years, the joint National Wound Credentialing working groups and was Chair of Scientific Program Committee for the 9th National AWMA Conference held in Sydney, 2012.

INVITED EXPERT

Wendy is an invited expert on local committees and advisory groups including the Wound Healing and Management (WHAM) Node Expert Reference Group & Corresponding Reference Group. She has also worked with the Wound Management Collaborative Research Centre (WMI CRC) Ultrasonic debridement expert group (past) and was an Advisor of Wound Education services, and member of the Credentialing working group (Wounds Innovation)– initially a joint project with Wounds Australia.

Wendy as a past and current invited expert, has contributed to local and international advisory and working groups developing resources and consensus documents focusing on both wound related pain minimisation (2005 – 2008) and improving wellbeing when living with a wound (2010 – 2012) and promoting advocacy, person-focused care and engagement in wound management (2014 – current). She is an invited member of the Patient & Carer Advocacy Working group who presented at the World Union Wound Healing Society Symposium (WUWHS) in Florence, Italy 2016. The group developed a discussion paper to launch at the European Wound Management Association conference in 2017, and in association with Ellie Lindsey & Leg Club Foundation contributed to the launch of a patient engagement consensus document chaired by Professor Keith Harding. (2020 World Union Wound Healing Society conference cancelled)

In 2022 – current, Wendy was invited to join an international working group focused on recommendations for care of the hard-to-heal wound by generalist clinicians.

Wendy developed a conceptual model for risk assessment relating to wound debridement and co-authored the book chapter ‘Assessment & management of non-viable tissue’ in Wound Management for the Advanced Practitioner (Swanson, Asimus, McGuiness 2014).

She is a past contributing author, invited reviewer and guest editor (2017) for the Wound Australia publication ‘Wound Practice & Research’.

KEY INTERESTS / FOCUS

Her areas of wound related clinical interest, research or publication include skin tear prevention and management, minimising wound related pain (including low resource setting), differentiation of neuropathic pain, wellbeing when living with a wound including engagement and partnership, clinicians as advocates, the safe and appropriate management of non-viable tissue and biofilm, pressure injury prevention & management frameworks for change advancing debridement knowledge & skills acquisition training programs

Since 2007 she has developed and delivered debridement workshops, short courses (inclusive of online learning modules) and face to face practicums relating to wound debridement with a practical emphasis on conservative sharp wound debridement skills. These services have been delivered in New Zealand, Australia and Singapore.

Supporting organisations and Local Health Districts in the development of local policy and increasing the knowledge and skills of health care professions to incorporate maintenance conservative sharp and sharp wound debridement (CSSWD), is a current area of interest and focus.

In 2021, Wendy partnered with the New Zealand Wound Care Society who licensed her debridement educational content. This collaboration and partnership was initiated to promote and advocate for wider engagement by organisations and health care professionals for a variety of modalities (inclusive of sharp and conservative sharp) to be incorporated safely into everyday practice. The aim was to raise awareness, increase knowledge and change practice to the essential but often under-recognised debridement component in a multifaceted approach to minimising risk and management of hard-to heal, healable wounds.

VOLUNTEER

From 2008 – 2018, Wendy was a member of an Australian volunteer burns reconstructive surgical team in Nepal annually providing access to life changing surgical procedures for burn injury survivors. The aim was to provide specialty care for those living with burn scar contracture who were negatively impacted by either economic or geographic barriers.

She also provided wound specific educational support to Nepali health care professionals during her rotations inclusive of evidence based practice relating to burn prevention & first aid, acute & chronic infection & inflammation, debridement, assessment skills and pressure injury prevention, assessment & management. She has worked closely with the WHAM group to disseminate available evidence summaries for resource poor countries / communities.

Clinical and educational support provided has seen the introduction of ANZBA guidelines for burn first aid into local policy; changing the way acute burn victims are managed in a low resource, regional healthcare site.

In 2017 the team returned to Nepal for the first time since the devastating Nepal earthquake which occurred 2 weeks after the 2015 burns team returned to Australia. In 2018 just weeks before departure of the team, the Nepali government banned the entry of all international medical teams. Teams have since returned to serve the most vulnerable...the need continues.

GIVING BACK

Wendy has committed to continue to ‘give back’ to those in need, by donating a percentage of the income from Wendy White WoundCare services to ‘The Shoe that Grows’ – a project that she and her team continue to be excited about!

https://becauseinternational.org/the-shoe-that-grows

From 2008 - 2018, Wendy has volunteered as a surgical team member, working alongside Nepali healthcare professionals caring for burn injury survivors.

Talking Wounds with Wendy White

To inspire many, by connecting with one.