Award-winning academic Marie Muller, who has been the chairperson of Rand Afrikaans University’s nursing department since 1996, has been appointed as dean of the faculty of education and nursing.
Muller, a recipient of a Women in Research Award by the South African Association of Women Graduates earlier this year, has had a chequered career since completing her doctoral studies in 1990.
In her research studies, she focuses specifically on quality improvement in nursing and health care and nursing management.
Among the research projects undertaken by Muller were in-service training in nursing; standards for community diagnosis; patient education standards in general hospitals; an investigation into the crisis within the nursing profession; determining health needs of a community in informal housing settings; mutual health service delivery at JG Strijdom hospital; standards for nursing agencies; professional competencies of the newly qualified RAU BCur student; the quality of critical-care service management in South African hospitals; standards for nursing unit management in South Africa; standards for nursing service management in South Africa; and the quality of nursing service management in South Africa.
She is currently researching the impact of the Council for Health Service Accreditation in Southern Africa accreditation programme on selected indicators; a value clarification on strike action by nurses in South Africa; standards for nursing agencies in South Africa; the role of hospitals in health service delivery in selected countries in Africa; and the quality of nursing and midwifery care in South Africa.
Among the awards and grants she has received are the Human Sciences Research Council research grant for doctoral studies in 1989; the Haum award for the best paper delivered at a national conference in 1991; the John Tremble medal in 1995 for leadership contribution in the nursing profession; and the gold medal of the Nursing Association for outstanding professional and academic service rendered at national and international levels in nursing.
– The Teacher/M&G Media, Johannesburg, August 2001.