At home with meaning

Susan Hupkens was born in 1963 and spent most of her childhood in Arnhem, the Netherlands. After her Athenaeum diploma she chose to follow the practice oriented ‘inservice’ vocational training for nurses. She graduated as a nurse in 1985 from the Academical Hospital Utrecht (now UMC) and worked there at the hematological department. She worked in several hospitals and as a home nurse in Utrecht and The Hague.

Susan graduated in nurse education from the Hogeschool Midden Nederland in 1990 and worked as a lecturer practitioner in the Westeinde Hospital and in 2013-2014 in Woonzorgcentra Haaglanden (WZH) in the Hague. She was a nurse lecturer for seventeen years in the Frédérique Meyboomschool, and its successors, in Delft and The Hague.

Besides, Susan worked as an aromatherapist in her own practice, from 2002- 2016, in cooperation with several midwives in the Hague. As a board member of the section complementary care of V&VN (the Dutch nurse’s professional association) she contributed to professionalisation of complementary nursing in the Netherlands.

In 2009 she graduated (cum laude) in Public Health (differentiation Health Service Innovation) from Maastricht University and she started as a researcher in the Research Centre Innovations in Care of the Hogeschool Rotterdam, which she combines, since 2013, with education for nurses. Susan has contributed to several practice-oriented studies of this research centre. Most of her work focusses on well-being of older persons and community care.

In 2014 she started the graduate school of the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht for this PhD (part-time). Susan is married and has two daughters and a granddaughter. She lives in the Hague.