Skip Links
“Nursing is such a great ticket to have. It just opens up so many doors all over the world - there’s such a variety of work places and jobs on offer.”
Kiri Hunter has had a varied, exciting and interesting career since gaining her Diploma in Comprehensive Nursing in 1993. Thanks to her nursing qualification, she worked all over Australia in a variety of roles including alongside the Royal Flying Doctor Service in remote rural communities around Cape York; as a resort nurse for the five-star Lizard Island Resort; and as nursing unit manager at Sydney’s St George Public Hospital – a major teaching trauma hospital. It was at St George that she was awarded a leadership award for leading changes to the medical model in the hospital’s High Dependency Unit.
Kiri moved to Nelson in 2008, and was a ward nurse in Nelson Hospital’s surgical unit before joining NMIT in 2011 as clinical educator and then nursing tutor.
“I’ve always loved nursing and interacting with people - nursing education is just a natural progression of that.”
Particularly interested in the development of a new nurse's professional identity through the socialisation process, Kiri's master’s research explored the influence of registered nurse role models and the hidden curriculum in clinical practice. More recent research has focused on Māori nurses and socio-cultural, socioethical issues in clinical practice.
Kiri is appointed Kaitautoko Tikanga ā-rua (Bicultural advisor) on the Nursing Praxis of Aotearoa New Zealand Editorial Board. She is also a member of the NMIT Kawa Whakaruruhau (cultural safety) committee, and national Wharangi Ruamono committee which represents Maori nurse educators in tertiary education and clinical practice.
Aside from fulfilling a Māori student support role at NMIT, Kiri is a mum and competitive waka ama paddler with Whakatū Marae Waka Ama Club who has won national and international titles.
Iwi: Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitāne and Ngāti Maniapoto.
Qualifications: Registered Nurse, Master of Nursing (distinction), Graduate Certificates (Acute care/ Orthopaedic nursing), Diploma in Comprehensive Nursing, Diploma in Tertiary Learning and Teaching
Recipient of the NMIT Research Award 2018
Recent research publications:
Hunter, K. & Cook, C. (2020). Indigenous nurses' practice realities of cultural safety and socioethical nursing. Nursing Ethics. Accepted: June 1st, 2020
Hunter, K. (2020). Cultural safety or cultural appropriation? Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand, 26(1), 24-25.
Hunter, K. (2019). The significant cultural value of our Māori nursing workforce [Editorial]. Nursing Praxis in New Zealand, 35(3), 4-6. doi: 10.36951/NgPxNZ.2019.009
Hunter, K. & Cook, C. (2018). Role‐modelling and the hidden curriculum: New graduate nurses’ professional socialisation. Journal of Clinical Nursing, 27, 3157-3170. doi: 10.1111/jocn.14510
O’Connor, T. (2017). Walking with students. Kai Tiaki: Nursing New Zealand, 23(1), 17. Professional profile K Hunter