Professor Annette Summers

Annette Summers is currently a Professorial Fellow at Flinders University, School of Nursing and Midwifery. In 1998 she became a Professor of Midwifery and the Head of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of South Australia, retiring in 2006. Whilst in this role, Annette was instrumental

in bringing together representatives from universities around Australia to facilitate the introduction of the 3-year Bachelor of Midwifery and developing national midwifery education standards.

Annette’s PhD thesis examined the eclipse of the midwife in South Australia from 1836 to 1942. She has a strong interest in the history of midwifery and in medical military history.

Annette joined the Royal Australian Army Nursing Corps, Army Reserve in 1980 as
a Junior Lieutenant and reached the rank of Colonel in 1999. She is currently the archivist
for the Army Museum of South Australia and a member of the Army Health Services Historical Research Group. Recently, she has co-authored three books with medical colleagues about medical practitioners who served in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) from WW1 to post Vietnam.

In 2004, Annette was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her contribution to midwifery and nursing education, the ADF and community service. She was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Flinders University in 2016. She has also received a Reserve Forces Decoration (RFD) in the form of a Land Command Commendation for her service to Australia in the Army Reserves and a Red Cross Award for her service to the Humanitarian Law Committee of South Australia.

Annette is very pleased to be invited as an advisor to this project.

Summers, A. (1995). ‘For I have ever so much faith in her ability as a nurse’: The eclipse of the community midwife in South Australia 1836-1942 (PhD Thesis, Flinders University).

Anne has kindly given the Australian Midwifery History site permission to make her PhD thesis available here electronically.

Summers, A. (2007). Three nursing legacies: Nightingale, medicine, and technology and their impact on nursing practice. Asian Journal of Nursing, 10(1), 6-11.

Summers, A. (2000). A different start: Midwifery in South Australia 1836-1920. International History of Nursing Journal, 5(3), 51-57.

Summers, A. (1998). The lost voice of midwifery: Midwives, Nurses and the Nurses Registration Act of South Australia. Collegian, 5(3), 16-22.

Summers, A. (1997). Sairy Gamp: Generating fact from fiction. Nursing Inquiry, 4: 14-18.

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