Rate My Professor Donna Tietjens

Donna Tietjens serves as Head of Reference Services at the Wellington Medical and Health Sciences Library, University of Otago. In this leadership role, she oversees reference services that support the information needs of students, faculty, and researchers across medical and health sciences disciplines at the Wellington campus. The library provides essential resources and expertise for teaching, learning, and research in areas aligned with the University of Otago's Division of Health Sciences.

Donna Tietjens functions as subject librarian for key health-related fields, including Child Health, Cognitive-Behaviour Therapy, Aviation Medicine, Physical Education, Sport & Exercise Sciences, and associated subjects such as Continence Management. Her specialized knowledge in information management and retrieval is instrumental in aiding academic endeavors. This is reflected in the extensive acknowledgments she receives in scholarly outputs from University of Otago researchers. For example, she contributed to search strategies in the article 'Health navigation for people experiencing newly acquired long-term physical disability' by Timothy, Tietjens, Martin et al., published in the New Zealand Journal of Physiotherapy (2024, Vol. 52(2), pp. 160-176). Similar recognition appears in 'A scoping review of coaching in occupational therapy' by Graham et al. (Australian Occupational Therapy Journal, 2024), where she assisted in designing the search strategy and retrieving publications. Other works include 'An integrative review of the lived experiences of chronic pain among Indigenous peoples' by Fernandes et al. (Social Science & Medicine, 2025), acknowledging her support in developing a comprehensive search strategy; 'Knowledge was clearly associated with education: epistemic positioning in the context of informed choice, a scoping review and secondary qualitative analysis' by Ireland-Blake et al. (BMC Medical Ethics, 2025), thanking her and the library team; and 'Systematic Review of Group-Based Emotion Regulation Interventions for Autistic Children and Youth' by Jasni et al. (OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health, 2025), for assistance with the search strategy.

Student theses frequently credit her expertise, such as those by Davies (2024) on barriers and facilitators to self-directed practice outside inpatient stroke rehabilitation; Hamer (2022) on caregivers' experiences implementing sleep positioning systems; D’Souza (2023) on whether children are a priority in public policy; McCleary on scoping review for rehabilitation; and many others for help with literature searches, EndNote, and research support. Her consistent involvement highlights her impact on facilitating high-quality research outputs in health sciences at the University of Otago.