Rate My Professor Rebecca Sharp

Dr Rebecca Sharp is a Senior Lecturer in Nursing at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, College of Health, Adelaide University, with a balanced teaching and research position. She holds a Bachelor of Nursing (BN), Bachelor of Health Science (Honours) (BHSc Hons), and PhD. With more than 10 years’ experience in mixed methods research, Dr Sharp focuses on improving the safety and experience of healthcare for patients with conditions such as cancer. Her work includes qualitative research on health consumer experiences of care for adults and children, and quantitative research identifying predictors of adverse events in healthcare, such as thrombosis associated with vascular access devices. This encompasses peripherally inserted central catheters (PICCs), midline catheters, and umbilical vascular catheters. Funded research led by Dr Sharp interrogated data from four hospitals in Australia and New Zealand to quantify minimum vein sizes for reducing vascular access device thrombosis.

Dr Sharp collaborates with clinicians in hospital and home-based settings, producing research that informs international guidelines, including the World Health Organization’s ‘Guidelines for the prevention of bloodstream infections’ and the Infusion Nurses Society’s ‘Infusion Therapy Standards of Practice’, translated into eight languages and used globally. She has led co-design projects with health consumers and clinicians to enhance vascular access device education and supports for home care, such as the ‘Living Well With a PICC at Home’ booklet. Key publications include Sharp et al. (2025) ‘Nursing Care of Adults With a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) or Midline Catheter in the Home’; Sharp et al. (2025) ‘‘Living Well With a PICC at Home’: Co-Design and Evaluation of a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) Booklet’; Gibson et al. (2025) ‘Adverse events associated with umbilical vascular catheters in neonatal intensive care’; Sharp et al. (2023) ‘The parent, child and young person experience of difficult venous access’; and Sharp et al. (2021) ‘Catheter to vein ratio and risk of peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC)-associated thrombosis’. Dr Sharp is the past president of the Australian Vascular Access Society and a member of an international task force developing the International Home-Based Nursing Scope of Practice and Standards with the American Nurses Association and International Home Care Nurses Organisation. As Course Coordinator, she embeds research into teaching, developing vascular access guidelines and patient-story-integrated learning materials.