Master Chef 2013 - Cathy Ward (L) and Lisa Lavey (R)

The annual Bendigo Master Chef and Junior Master Chef challenge was a resounding success. Funds raised for the Support, Prevention and Research into breast and gynaecological cancers totalled approximately $540. This was made up of on-line donations, entry fees, raffles and the sale of plants.

You can make a tax-deductible donation any time – online!

Prizes were donated by Purtill’s Nursery of Huntly, Elegant Concepts, Axedale Reef Winery, The Good Loaf, Pat & Leonie Francis, Marilyn Hards, Cathy Ward, and Sandra Paschkow.

Old hands and budding chefs created superb dishes to tantalize the tastebuds of the foodies and freeloaders who sipped, sucked, slurped and scoffed the tempting array of dishes on offer. After carefully considering their vote, which may have included going back for seconds, winners were announced.

Master Chef 2013 is:

Junior Master Chef 2013 is:

Congratulations to the winners, organiser Lisa Lavey and all participants and taste testers.

Photo by Lee Cheney

Among the organised chaos of building the New Bendigo Hospital, these delightful birds were entertaining School of Rural Health staff at the Bendigo office last week.

Their happy squawking while foraging for nectar in a bottle brush outside the Bendigo offices, helped to drown out the constant low rumbling of the hundreds of trucks removing excavated soil and rubble from the New Hospital building site.

Dr Rebecca Kippen’s public seminar titled “The Mad, The Bad & The Sad”: Life courses of women transported to Tasmania, attracted many community members, staff and other interested people.  Rebecca was interviewed on ABC breakfast radio, which stimulated public interest.

Rebecca graduated with a PhD in Demography from the Australian National University in 2002 and currently holds an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship in the Centre for Health and Society at the University of Melbourne. Her two main research projects are ‘Epidemics, mortality and longevity in Tasmania, 1838-1930’ and ‘Convicts and Diggers: a demography of life courses, families and generations’.

Her study of convict women in Tasmania from 1803 to 1930 follows their life courses, families and subsequent generations. Of particular interest was the life of one Anne Beckett.  Meticulous details were recorded about each convict including description, character, marriage, birth and death, which made it possible to trace genealogy through the generations. Convicts were classed into the respectable and the rough, that is, those who behaved and those who didn’t. The rough may have been prostitutes, alcoholics, or thieves and likely to be of Scottish origin. Of interest is that a majority of the convicts were already known to police before transportation. Members of the public interested in following up their genealogy had plenty of questions for Rebecca at the end of her lecture.

‘Founders & Survivors is a partnership between historians, genealogists, demographers and population health researchers. It seeks to record and study the founding population of 73,000 men women and children who were transported to Tasmania.’

The Founders & Survivors newsletter is called ‘Chainletter’, which can be downloaded from the above site.

Mr Stephen Lindsay, a Urological Surgeon in Bendigo, recently held a skills session for the University of Melbourne final year students, “Surviving Urology 101”. Mr Lindsay enlisted Senior Lecturer in Clinical Skills, Adele Callaghan, to help in developing a scenario on Renal Colic using the new Bendigo Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre (CSSC) facilities. Mr Lindsay praised the enormous amount of preparation that Adele did to ensure that the session was highly successful.

“I have been teaching Medical undergraduates since 1990 and I think I usually do a reasonable job. But I have never had students more energised and engaged than the group on Thursday. The quality of the experience for the students (and me!) in the simulation centre is unbelievable, and Adele ran the session beautifully. We had a lot of fun, and I think I learned at least as much as the students!” praised Mr Lindsay and he looks forward to using the CSSC again for his “boring old Urology tutorials”.

For more information about Bendigo’s CSSC, contact Adele Callaghan.

Professor Christina Mitchell and Professor Judi Walker unveil the painting and plaque marking the opening of the new clinical skills centre.

Bendigo’s new Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre was officially opened by the Dean, Professor Christina Mitchell, in late September.

The $1.2 million centre incorporates a simulated two-bed ward, a “sim gym” for learning and practising specific clinical skills, and a high fidelity suite which includes a sophisticated Sim Man which can be programmed to simulate a range of complex health conditions. The centre also includes control rooms, briefing rooms and the ability to stream a simulation into the auditorium.

In the spirit of collaborative training, the new centre will be used by medical students from Monash University and the University of Melbourne; nursing, paramedic and allied health students from La Trobe University; and nursing students from Bendigo TAFE, as well as practising health professionals.

For students and Bendigo health professionals it’s ideally placed on the health education and research precinct near the new hospital development, but will also include an outreach program to health services outside Bendigo.

The new Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre is funded jointly by Health Workforce Australia, as an Australian Government initiative, and the Victorian Department of Health.

Cathy Driver runs a simulation from the control room of the hi-fidelity suite.

The staff in Bendigo are a talented group, but we were all stunned by the amazing skill and creativity on display at the first ‘Off Ramp Creations’ exhibition held at the School of Rural Health in Bendigo this month.

Bendigo staff were invited to showcase their artistic and creative talents during a two-week exhibition. Paintings, jewellery, poetry, children’s books, masks, textile collage, candles, tapestry, long stitch, cross stitch, a streetscape diorama, ceramics, quilting, knitting, beading, a coffee table, gift cards and crotchet ‘bombing’ decorated the foyer.

At the closing of the exhibition, a number of donated art and craft pieces were auctioned. There was fierce competition for all the items, but the most hotly contested item was the painting “Platypus at Play” by Regional Manager, Kerrie Thomsen.  The final winning bid for the painting, along with all the proceeds of the other auction items and gold coin donations raised $425.00 for St Luke’s Anglicare. St Luke’s assists children, young people, adults and families to make positive change in their lives and to be connected and contribute to their community.

The organising committee and Bendigo staff would also especially like to thank the family of Kay Togno for generously allowing us to display Kay’s beautiful art during the exhibition.  Kay was a long time Monash Bendigo employee who died 2 years ago in October 2011.

Sonya Steve

Your name and position

Sonya Steve, Program Administrator, Year 4 and Manager Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre, Bendigo

Describe your job/role

Half of my role is to coordinate the program for the Year 4 Medical Students, including their tutorials, hospital placements, and hub placements for GP rotations; the other half is job share managing the newly completed CSSC, all very exciting.

Why is it important?

Both roles are important to the students. It is essential we maximise their learning capacity within all the teaching facilities, so ensuring their schedules are accurate and fulfilling is the challenging task!

What is the best aspect of your work with the School of Rural Health?

Assisting our students through their journey of becoming health professionals and seeing them return as registered medical practitioners ready to serve the community is the best!

When you are not at work, what do you enjoy doing?

Spending time with my family and friends, book club, kids sport, ceramics, watching movies and dancing.

What was your most recent holiday destination and why did you choose it?

Queensland – totally a kids’ indulgence trip!

If you were Emperor for a day, what is one thing you would implement?

World peace!

Surprise us! What is something about you that most of your peers would not know?

I do calligraphy writing including certificates, wedding invitations and place cards etc.

Sibon Fuzzard

The Northern Victoria Regional Medical Education Network (NVRMEN) is a collaborative partnership between the rural clinical schools of Monash University and the University of Melbourne.

Established in 2006 to address the need for more doctors in rural areas, it provides extended clinical training in rural Victoria to 60 students each year, 30 from each university. This group is known as the Extended Rural Cohort.

Bendigo hosts students from both universities for their first clinical training year, and this year’s group included Sibon Fuzzard.

Sibon has lived in Bendigo most of her life and chose to study at the University of Melbourne but spent time at the Monash Bendigo Regional Clinical School, along with other University of Melbourne students. The next stage of Sibon’s studies is a trip to Africa. This is part one of Sibon’s story.

Medical school can seem like a series of obligations – exams, study, lectures, and ward rounds.

It can seem like hard work with little reward, a road that winds on and on with no apparent end in sight!

I am thankful that all of these worries are melting away with the rapid approach of graduation and internship. I now see the study as a pleasure, expanding my knowledge and opening my eyes to solutions for healthcare problems.

The exams are done and dusted; with the power of hindsight they didn’t even seem that bad. Those niggling doubts that the rewards of my labour were minimal have vanished.

I am about to become a doctor; and before I do, I have the life changing opportunity to travel to Africa for my elective placement.

(more…)

Bake-off winners are (L-R) Andrew Moon accepted for Sarah Moon, Bernadette Ward and David Russell.

Research staff held a Bake Off in aid of an annual June fundraiser, ‘Give Me 5 For Kids!’ staged by local radio station 93.5 3BO.

Each year the event raises funds for Bendigo Health’s paediatric ward to buy much needed equipment that assists in helping seriously ill children. All money raised locally, stays local.

The Research office enticed 11 budding bakers to make their specialty for staff morning tea.  Each cake and slice was put to the taste test and votes were placed.

The entrants provided an array of cakes and slices that would rival a High Tea at the Windsor. Bernie Ward’s Lumberjack cake was a firm favourite, closely followed by dishes produced by two junior chefs. Sarah Moon’s Fudgy Ginger cake and Kate Russell’s Chocky Orange and poppy seed cake were both declared ‘yum!’

So far $224.50 has been raised. Thanks to Lisa Lavey for organising the morning, to those who donated gifts for the raffle and to all the taste testers, who probably had the best time of everyone!

The litter of boutique puppies ‘The Dog’ caused a sensation and all went to good homes for a modest sum.

Year 4 Bendigo-based medical student, Saada Malouf, has just returned from several weeks in Uganda, part of a team on a visit organised by Monash medical student global health group, TeaMMEd.

Before she went, Saada, who is originally from Gippsland, spoke to the Bendigo Advertiser and what she hoped to achieve on the trip. (Read the article).

The team originally had a choice between Tonga and Uganda, but Saada chose Uganda because it appealed to her more.

The group took numerous medical supplies to help out the local people and to leave supplies once the trip had ended. In a country where people live on $A1.25 a day and a box of band-aids costs about $4.00, the group decided the medical supplies would be valuable.

Saada approached several business and Rotary clubs in Bendigo as well as in her home area of Gippsland to support purchase of the supplies and was delighted with the response.