Barbara Docherty is a retired registered nurse with a Masters degree (First Class Honours) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science. She was a general practice nurse, an honorary clinical lecturer at the University of Auckland and from 1998 to 2007 led the World Health Organization TADS (tobacco, alcohol and other drugs) training programme.

Barbara's extensive writings on health pro fessional-patient communication have been widely published in medical and nursing journals. For 28 years she was a blogger and contributor to NZ Doctor, and for eight years was Canterbury Newstalk ZB's talkback nurse, also providing regular newspaper columns, community and national radio commentaries on health education matters. She was editor of the New Ethicals Primary Health Care Journal. Her book, Nursing in General Practice - A New Zealand Perspective, remains a key library reference.

Barbara was appointed to three Health Boards, was a founding member of the Practice Nurse Accreditation Board, and in 1997 received a New Zealand Nurses Organisation award for services to nursing and midwifery.

She is a long-time daily swimmer and a proud mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. Born in Auckland, New Zealand, she also spent many years in Christchurch and the remote Chatham Islands, but now resides in Wellington.