NOSM visits SRH
The School of Rural Health hosted Sue Berry from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) who was in Australia during February on a study tour. Sue is the Associate Dean (interim) Continuing Health Professional Education at NOSM and is interested in how other medical and health professional schools view “community engagement” in the work that they do.
Squeezing in Monash between visits to James Cook University and Flinders University, she visited Bendigo, Clayton, Churchill and Bairnsdale where she took part in a community engagement workshop hosted by the School of Rural Health – Bairnsdale.
While in Bendigo she met with key staff and, over lunch, described the medical degree offered by NOSM. Of particular interest were the clinical attachments students undertake for weeks at a time in a remote aboriginal settlement. Students sometimes have to fly into these settlements and outside access is very difficult, particularly in harsh weather conditions. In the afternoon, Sue visited a local Bendigo medical practice, Creek Street Medical Practice, with Dr Dennis O’Connor.
As it happens, Sue has a Bendigo connection through her daughter marrying a Bendigo man. Sue and the Bendigo mother-in-law are eagerly awaiting their first grandchild.