Rate My Professor Debbie Ling

Dr Debbie Ling is a Lecturer in the Department of Social Work within the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Monash University. She earned a BA in Psychology and Economics and a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Melbourne, followed by a PhD from Monash University in 2019. Her doctoral thesis investigated the relationship between perceptions of common humanity and compassion among healthcare workers, providing empirical evidence that enhancing common humanity perceptions increases compassion. With over 25 years of professional experience as a social worker, Ling has worked across health, mental health, hospitals, aged care, disability, schools, child protection, and community organizations. She served as a Senior Clinician Social Worker at Epworth HealthCare from 2014 to 2024 and as an Accredited Mental Health Social Worker in private practice. Additional training includes family therapy, grief and loss counseling, conflict resolution, and mindfulness-based approaches. Ling holds several leadership roles, including International Healthcare Sector Co-Lead for the Charter for Compassion, member of the Australian Compassion Council, and advisory board member for the Centre for a Compassionate Society.

As a compassion and common humanity researcher and educator, Ling has made significant contributions to healthcare training and prosocial behavior studies. She led the development of the Monash University 'Compassion Training for Healthcare Workers' self-paced online course, launched in 2022, which has reached over 3000 healthcare professionals and students worldwide. The course, covering the science of compassion, empathy-compassion differences, and common humanity strategies, is now compulsory curriculum for final-year medical students at Monash University and Warwick University (UK). It earned the 2022 Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Education-Industry and Community Education Programs (Teams), a special commendation at the 2022 Vice-Chancellor's Awards, and a 2023 Dean's Award for Programs that Enhance Learning (Team). Other honors include the 2020 School of Primary and Allied Health Care Research Impact Award and the 2019 Three Minute Thesis Winner. She has contributed to research grants exceeding $550,000, including projects on compassion training for paramedics and support for culturally diverse carers. Key publications encompass 'Outcomes from a Compassion Training Intervention for Health Care Workers' (2018), 'Investigating How Viewing Common Humanity Scenarios Impacts Compassion: A Novel Approach' (2020), 'The Use of Common Humanity Scenarios to Promote Compassion in Healthcare Workers' (2021), ''It's very values driven': A qualitative systematic review of the meaning of compassion according to healthcare professionals' (2024), and 'Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Informal Carer Experiences of Older Adult Care Transitions From Hospital to Home: A Scoping Review' (2026). Ling frequently delivers presentations on compassion training at international conferences in the USA, UK, and Ireland, and serves as chief examiner for a Master of Social Work unit on health and mental health.