The audience was attentive to every word delivered by Associate Professor Darryl Maybery.

Associate Professor Darryl Maybery,  Director of MUDRIH, has delivered the first of Mildura’s 2013 lecture series to a wide audience of medical and local community members.

Darryl’s topic was ’Breaking the generational cycle of mental illness’, and coincided with the launch and promotion of a new DVD titled Family Focus.

One in five children has a parent with a mental illness; the aim of the Family Focus program is to empower families to start a conversation about the problems, with the intended outcome to reduce the risk of children getting the same illness as their parent.  The chance to talk about these illnesses helps children realise that the depression and anxiety they see in their parents is not their fault.

Information about the event was circulated through flyers to health organisations and individuals, radio announcements, and advertisements in local newspapers.  Consequently 70 registrations were received from a mixture of health clinicians and public, which packed the lecture room to capacity. (more…)

Director of the East Gippsland Clinical School Dr David Campbell (right) with guest speaker at the Bairnsdale student welcome dinner, Geoff Wigney and his wife Lynice.

Representatives from Bairnsdale Regional Health Service, local medical general practitioners and specialists, members of the Indigenous community and representatives from Secondary Schools in the area were among those who took part in a welcome dinner for East Gippsland Regional Clinical School (Bairnsdale campus) Year 4C medical students.

Each of the nine students gave a short talk outlining their background and their expectations of the year spent in the Gippsland area and at their respective local medical practices.

The students and guests also heard a fascinating talk by guest speaker, Mr Geoff Wigney, who spoke of his work in many countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Africa, offering assistance for women affected by sexual, substance and alcohol abuse as well as trafficking of young girls. Many of these women are suffering from AIDS.

Geoff and his wife Lynice have built, with the help of volunteers, a factory in Thailand for women to manufacture products such as handbags, picture frames and trinkets.

In addition they are building a kitchen in Cambodia for the local women to run cooking classes for the many tourists who visit their area.  Geoff and Lynice wife run a local business in Bairnsdale called Empower International, which buys and sells all the produce from these countries.

The successful evening was an opportunity for students to get to know each other and the staff from their practices. All students are now looking forward to immersing themselves in their respective communities.

Coomealla High School Students, from left, Matthew Mathieson, Bailey Catterton, Lauren Fraser, Sophie Stephens, Rhianna Duncan, Holly Lush, Abbey Henderson, Beth Darby, Shanae Tilley, Mikaela Fraser, Emily Smith, Dylan Watson and Shae McDonnell. They all had great fun working with mannequin SimMan3G.

Coomealla High School Students, keen on nursing, from left Megan Clothier, Beth Darby, Shae McDonnell and Nikita Dalzell. All enjoyed working with one of the school's mannequins, SimNewB.

In collaboration with Broken Hill University’s Department of Rural Health, Mildura Regional Clinical School facilitated two Academy Days late last year for 30 students enthusiastic about pursuing a career in Medicine or Nursing.

The clinically-practical and action-packed days were a huge success as the students, from Coomealla High School in Dareton NSW,  enjoyed demonstrations of current medical skills and thrived on the multitude of hands-on experiences. (more…)

At Traralgon the students and staff were delighted with the books. From left are student Sophie, teacher’s aide Paula, students Richard and Caleb, teacher Fiona Derham, student Jodie and Principal Barb Walsh.

A group of students and staff at another specialist developmental school has benefited from the assistance provided to Gippsland Regional Clinical School students throughout the year. The School presented two valuable learning books to the Traralgon Specialist Developmental School to say thanks for hosting the medical students at various times during the year. Students from the Latrobe Valley campus of the Clinical School spent time at the Developmental School, learning about communications and working with people with a disability.  A similar arrangement was in place with Baringa Special School in Moe for the Warragul students.

The students and staff were delighted to help out the medical students and nominated the books as their gift of choice as a way of saying thanks.

SRH 20th Anniversary Community Conversation Dinner in Bendigo

To celebrate the School of Rural Health’s 20^th Anniversary, Bendigo Regional Clinical School held its Community Conversation over dinner late in November.

The evening had been anticipated with great excitement by many of the staff, particularly amongst some of the female staff who were happy to have any excuse to buy a new outfit to celebrate the 20 year anniversary!

Invitees included Chief Executive Officers and their service staff from 10 partner organisations around the greater Bendigo area.  CEOs were invited to submit a local health related issue that affects their organisation and participants were then able to discuss the issue over dinner. The results of the many and varied conversations are to be collated and distributed early in 2013.

Robust discussions were held around topics including how behaviour could be influenced to reduce obesity in Bendigo, pressure on community placements for health trainees in regional and rural general practice, working toward a community prevention model to reduce the rate of risky alcohol consumption among Greater Bendigo residents and other interesting issues that the group embraced with enthusiasm.

While we are not convinced we managed to solve all the problems that face our community, hopefully this group of respected people has come up with some amazing suggestions for how to address some of these topics.

The evening was held in the Conservatory at the All Seasons Resort in Bendigo.  This venue, more familiar with holding weddings on the weekend, was decorated beautifully with amazing attention to detail by our Regional Manager Kerrie Thomsen.  Her organisation and flair for style ensured that the environment was perfect and Donna Cohen managed to keep our large group to time and moving around the tables seamlessly.

The evening was well received by all that attended and we hope that this may be the first of many community conversations we will hold.

Lyndsey Brown, Educational Site Manager, Bendigo

Pictured with the new books is Baringa staff member, Laura Hollands (centre), along with students from left, Peter, Coleen, Brianna and Alex

The Gippsland Regional Clinical School has said thanks to Baringa Special School for its assistance throughout the year, with the donation of a series of books designed for those with learning disadvantages.

Each of the nine students from the Warragul Campus of the School of Rural Health spent a day at the Baringa School in Moe, learning about communications and working with people with a disability.

The Baringa students and staff were delighted to help out the medical students and the books were a small gift – which the special school nominated as something it wanted – to say thanks.

Pictured with her prize for taking part is Kellie Lamarino (centre) with Mark Heald and Samantha Hoyle from St Joseph's College Mildura

Mildura Regional Clinical School has put Monash’s Qualtrics software licence to good use, developing a survey for upper secondary school students to get their thoughts on entering medicine, and also to give them information about issues including enter scores.

As an incentive to participate in the survey, a $30 iTunes voucher was offered. The eventual winner was Kellie Lamarino, a Year 10 student from St Josephs College in Mildura.

Kellie and 33 other students from St Josephs College and Ouyen Secondary completed the quick survey relating to Medicine at Monash University.  Kellie received her iTunes card and some Monash merchandise after she was randomly selected from the survey participants who volunteered their name and school in their responses.

The Mildura Regional Clinical School is grateful for the participation of the local students, and also recommends the use of a survey such as this one to spread messages to potential undergraduate students.

Bendigo Regional Clinical School is a significant sponsor of the Bendigo Inventor Awards for the third year.

The Bendigo Regional Clinical School Silver sponsorship of the Bendigo Inventor Awards, contributes money and time to benefit our community. Graham Allardice representing Monash sat on the inaugural committee in 2010,  Pam Harvey was our committee member in 2011 and Kerrie Thomson, Regional Manager of the Bendigo Regional Clinical School, sits on the committee this year.

This year has again been a massive success, demonstrated by the number of inquiries, continual demand for support from innovators, popular attendance at support events, some international entrants to the awards and media attention – not to mention the employment that has been created for Central Victoria by some of the past entrants!

The awards and exhibition ceremony will see 60 inventions on display at the Bendigo town hall on 12 October 2012. Free tickets are available now by calling (03) 5434 6100

Bernadette Cranswick joined the primary school students for a discussion on the skeleton.

Students at the small and scenic Jindivick Primary School enjoyed a lesson on the human body and how it works from three Monash University medical students.

The trip to Jindivick, north of Warragul, was also an eye opener for the medical students, Heidi Zoumboulakis, Bronia Lewis and Bernadette Cranswick, who are all undertaking their Year 4C medical education through the Gippsland Regional Clinical School’s Warragul campus.

The medical students were impressed by the rural primary school and also the wonderful views at Jindivick as they provided year three, four, five and six students with a session on the human body and health.

The trio presented to a mix of 17 students and enjoyed the opportunity to interact with different age groups. As well as fielding all sorts of questions and running an activity on healthy eating, the medical students used a demonstration skeleton to show how the body operates.

The School was also impressed, with Jindivick Primary School Principal Wendy Arnott saying the medical students were “an absolute credit to Monash University.”

“The children thoroughly enjoyed the very informative and ‘hands-on’ session run by your students. Bronia, Bernadette and Heidi were very organised, professional and displayed beautiful personal/communication skills with the children,” Ms Arnott said.

Primary school visits such as the one to Jindivick are one of the ways the medical students use local opportunities to enhance their learning. The visits make the medical students think about how they need to communicate with a young age group, while also encouraging the primary school students to think about how the body works and how to keep it running smoothly.

A number of similar sessions are being held in other primary schools in Gippsland and as well as providing great experience for individual students, also raises the profile of the Gippsland Regional Clinical School in the community.

From left Heidi Zoumboulakis, Bronia Lewis and Bernadette Cranswick enjoyed their chance to teach students about the human body

The teddies benefited from some high tech help, even if this primary student found it a bit confusing.

Another group of disgruntled and off-colour teddy bears, along with their owners, popped into the Gippsland Regional Clinical School to see if they could get some help to fix their ailments.

Luckily for the teddies and their carers from St Paul’s Traralgon primary school, a group of Monash University Year 3B medical students who are undertaking their studies locally this year, were on hand to provide medical aid.

The visit by the 36 grade preps was part of the Teddy Bear Hospital visits that have proved so successful. The program has been running at Monash for the past four years and aims to alleviate ‘white coat anxiety’ in children which they can associate with going to the doctor or hospital.

As usual, the students –primary and medical – learned a lot from the session and many a teddy went home feeling much better too!