One by one, masked beauties trickled into Traralgon’s Premiere function on the night of Friday July 12th.

The venue was wonderfully decorated with local nature, simulating some sort of fairy’s forest – and the guests looked the part. Glitter, sequins, feathers and (sloth) fur covered the faces of Gippsland Medical School students, perhaps hiding the stress-lines incurred after a busy first semester.

But the GMS masquerade ball was about celebrating the year thus far (the cause of said stress-lines). And that we did.

Quickly, the masks came off in order to better enjoy a few beverages and quality local food, as well as some cheeky sweets from the candy bar. Guests paraded their attire in a photo booth, photos from which became more colourful as the night progressed.

Best dressed awards were awarded to coordinating couples and fancy femmes, and three GMS students dropped their stethoscopes in exchange for musical instruments, showcasing their hidden talents to the cohort.

Thanks to all those who played even the smallest role in organising the GMS masquerade ball, memories of which are now as faint as the remnant glitter on the floors of our bedrooms, with the end of the year seemingly equally as far away.

Look forward to a welcomed repose in semester two, when we can spend an evening on Facebook after the evidence from the photo booth has been uploaded for public viewing (surprise!)

–          By GMS students Julia, Tiarni and Jess.

As part of the ongoing Practice Nurse Education Group program, a General Practice Emergencies workshop was held at the Bairnsdale campus of East Gippsland Regional Medical School recently.

Results from the workshop show that as well as being a valuable learning experience for the medical practice nurses, it is also a positive networking opportunity as many of the participants travel from rural and remote areas of Gippsland.

Comments noted that the workshop was a positive reinforcement of existing knowledge, gaps in knowledge were covered and there was special mention of the introduction to SimMan as a learning tool.

Specific topics for the latest workshop included Management of Chest Pain and Anaphylaxis, Management of Asthma and a Structured Approach to Psychiatric Emergencies.

The workshops are designed to give medical practice nurses up to date training opportunities and have been held regularly over the last three years.

Each workshop offers a number of topics and all participants help by providing feedback and evaluation. The responses are taken into account when developing future program topics.

The program is well supported by local medical practitioners and nurse educators who run the topic discussions and instruction.

Paramedic Terry Houge from Orbost is pictured taking Ambulance Community Officers through a scenario at the workshop in Bairnsdale.

Ambulance Community Officers in Far East Gippsland are receiving excellent professional development through a program run by East Gippsland Regional Clinical School in association with Paramedic Community Support Coordinators.

East Gippsland Regional Clinical School, Bairnsdale was successful last year in securing a simulation grant from Health Workforce Australia (HWA) to support clinical education for the East Gippsland region.

The campus was able to purchase sophisticated simulation mannequins to support professional development and collaboration between health professionals, and provide opportunities for inter-professional educational activities at a local level.

Creation of the Simulated Learning Environment project, under the leadership of Marnie Connolly and supported by project officer Laurea Atkinson, has also created opportunities to support an outreach program for health care professionals.

As part of this program, a series of workshops is being held at the Bairnsdale campus, with Ambulance Community Officers from Mallacoota and Omeo participating in simulation scenarios. These are run by Paramedic Community Support Coordinators, Terry Houge from Orbost and Scott Fyfe from Omeo.

Ambulance Community Officers are all volunteers in their local community. Sophisticated technology allows them to experience lifelike simulated events. The hands-on experience in collaborative patient care develops skills particularly advantageous to health care workers in remote areas.

Terry and Scott both agree that such hi–tech training is designed to give the Ambulance Community Officers a controlled training environment yet one that is as real as possible. They also believe opportunities such as this are an invaluable tool for paramedics and Ambulance Community Officers from remote areas.

A program of workshops will be held over the next few months with Ambulance Community Officers visiting from the relatively remote communities of Mallacoota, Omeo and Cann River.

The project is possible due to funding made available by Health Workforce Australia.

Catching up with past students is one of joys of working in the School of Rural Health, especially when they take the time to drop into one of the campuses. That was the case with Raffy Halim, who recently popped into the East Gippsland Regional Clinical School at Sale where he was a student eight years ago. He tells here what he has been up to since his student days.

It seems in many ways so long ago, yet in other ways only like yesterday. It was 2005 and I was starting as a new clinical medical student at Sale Hospital.

It was my first “proper” clinical experience and after a few encounters in the city, I was pleasantly surprised at both how welcoming both the faculty and the patients were to being examined and questioned. I’m sure my patients now blame Sale for me being fairly relaxed around them and occasionally even dropping a bad pun!

I visited the hospital about a month ago and the friendly faces were still around and updating me on all the …erm… updates.

I hope the new students appreciate the huge new area that they have near the library! Back in my day (am I allowed to say that?) we were upstairs and the library was our hangout. So anyway, here’s my story since Sale, eight years ago.

Med School finished almost in the blink of an eye. Fourth year was fast and furious: covering GP/Psych/Paeds & O+G is quite a task and there seemed to be never enough time and always too much to do, especially as someone with a part-time job!

But then came final year, the reward for essentially completing Uni. I spent the first month or so on an elective in Nepal, assisting in theatre in Kathmandu, then later exploring the National Parks and Annapurna Ranges. After a brief rotation back in Australia, I was off to Malaysia for another rotation, where I finally found my specialty: Anaesthetics.

My holidays were also spent overseas in New York and I arrived exactly two and a half hours before my graduation ceremony. Final year was fun (and expensive!)

Internship saw me starting at Eastern Health, though my first rotation was not too far away from Sale, in Bairnsdale.

I recommend that others interns do not copy me; my first patient died within 10 minutes of me starting as a doctor! I actually had just picked up the patient in ED when he arrested. After that baptism of fire, things improved markedly. How could they get any worse?

As a resident, I did a critical care year and again did more Anaesthetics, now determined to pursue it as a career. This led me to Monash Health as an Anaesthetic SRMO and then a Registrar.

Now, I’m in second year, having just finished my Primary Exams and once again discovering that life does, indeed, exist outside the library and finally seeing old friends and familiar faces (like those in Sale).

Other than work, I’ve also travelled somewhat – Japan and Iceland are the standout countries – helped start a medical journal, JMTM where I’m the News and Media Editor and recently started a small online store.

But wherever I go, the bad puns follow…

–          By Raffy Halim, Year 3 Sale 2005

In collaboration with the Central Gippsland Health Service, Year 3B students at the Sale campus of East Gippsland Regional Clinical School joined transition nurses as part an interdisciplinary education program.

The skills session scenarios focused on detection of and communication with the deteriorating patient, both paediatric and adult.

All participants gave very positive feedback and it is hoped that opportunities for this type of interdisciplinary education continue and expand in the future.

Medical students and transition nurses enjoyed the chance to work in the interdisciplinary program in East Gippsland.

Sale and Bairnsdale hosted students on their Year 2 rural placements recently and a myriad of activities were well received by all students.

Bush Tucker Day at the Bairnsdale campus proved to be a real highlight, held to promote Aboriginal culture and heritage. Students were treated to a display of traditional items including a decorated gathering dish and other handmade utility items and were also involved in hands-on activities including making echidna-quill necklaces.

The day was led by Cassie Harrap, a local Aboriginal woman soon to become an elder in the area.

Following the activities at Lakes Entrance, students were treated to a Lake Tyers foreshore walk where Cassie enlightened them about edible plants, such as Warrigal Greens and pig face. Warrigal Greens is a leafy ground cover which can be used as a substitute for spinach and any recipe, in particular a quiche. More information on Warrigal Greens can be found at the following link: http://www.thebackyardfarmer.com.au/byf7/green.html

Cassie’s passion for her heritage, the lore and the art of her people, has been passed on from her father and she now works closely with secondary schools and other businesses to pass on her knowledge.

A highlight for Deborah Hewetson, the Year 2 coordinator, was an invitation extended to staff and Year 4C students by the Year 2 cohort, to a last night barbecue held at Paynesville on the lovely Gippsland Lakes.

Sessions in the skills lab were also held for the students, under the instruction and supervision of Deborah and Laurea Atkinson, the SLE project officer at Bairnsdale campus.  The students were able to experience the simulation equipment, the majority for the first time, and had half day sessions with ALS, SimMan, and SimMom, a particular highlight being the delivery of a baby.

Feedback from the students was excellent, albeit with humorous undertones!

In Sale, Year 2 students Sale spent an early and rather foggy morning visiting a dairy farm at Denison, half an hour’s drive from the Clinical School.

Dairy farmer Matt Coleman had already been up for some hours milking his herd of 250 cows, keeping just a few back ready for the arrival of the students at 7am.  Matt and tutor Jason McAinch, also a dairy farmer in the district, took students through the procedure associated with milking, cleaning the lines and storage of milk.

Matt emphasised that the dairy farm is a ‘food production facility’ and so requires exemplary hygiene standards. Students were given the opportunity to sample “real milk” and there was some promotion of milk by Jason as a healthy diary product versus soy drink. As Jason said “soy is not a milk…it is made from a bean!”

Students were shown the array of equipment used on a daily basis by farmers including tractors, hay forks and 4-wheelers. Jason emphasised the risks involved in the use of such machinery, issues of complacency which can lead to accidents and the need, as potentially rural doctors, to be aware of the risks often taken on farms.

Students were intrigued by the echidna quill necklaces, demonstrated by Cassie Harrap

It may not have been the BIGGEST but it was a bountiful morning tea held on the last Friday of the Year 2 placement in East Gippsland.

Staff and students from Year 2, 3B, 4C and 5D came along to enjoy a sumptuous morning tea of scones, slices and cakes, to raise money for Cancer research.

A fantastic effort raised a total of $140.05 and it also proved to be a great opportunity for students from all years to get together in a relaxed atmosphere.

The Biggest Morning Tea looked immaculate at the set up phase …… and students and staff soon swarmed over it, like bees to a honey pot!

The East Gippsland Regional Clinical School’s Cultural Safety plan is now complete with an acrylic plaque having been mounted on the wall adjacent to the reception desk of the Sale campus.

Designed in consultation with the Koori Liaison Officer at the Central Gippsland Health Service, Sandra Neilson, the plaque acknowledges the five Koori groups of the Gippsland area and acknowledges that the East Gippsland Regional Clinical School is situated on the traditional land of the Gurnai Kurnai people.

It is hoped that an official unveiling will take place as part of local NAIDOC week celebrations in July.

The plaque, recognising Gippsland’s five Koori groups, at East Gippsland Regional Clinical School’s Sale Campus.

The East Gippsland Education Trust has announced it will increase the amount and number of scholarships from next year.

Established in 2011 in conjunction with the Rotary Club of Sale, the Wellington and East Gippsland Shires and the community, the trust offers a bursary to local students who gain a place to study MBBS with Monash.

There have been four recipients so far, including Emily Mogridge this year, with the $1,000 used to assist with relocation, text books and the accommodation expenses experienced by rural students.

Now it has been decided to increase the amount of the Scholarship in 2014 from $1,000 to $5,000, with three scholarships available to qualifying students.

East Gippsland Regional Clinical School is justifiably proud of the work that has been done so far to assist local students in their endeavours to pursue a medical career.

As part of the commitment to the local community and secondary school students, the Year 3B group will attend Sale secondary college and speak with students from four secondary colleges about the UMAT and pathways to tertiary health education.

Emily Mogridge, the 2013 recipient of the East Gippsland Education Trust Scholarship, which will be increased next year.

Pictured in East Gippsland during the recent visit are, from left and seated, Kristy Allen, Debra Johnston, Fiona Wright and David Campbell, with Jenny Timmis standing

As a follow on from the Gippsland Education Forum held in the Latrobe Valley recently, Fiona Wright, Jenny Timmis and Kristy Allen from Mildura followed the Princes Highway north-east to visit the East Gippsland Regional Clinical School’s Bairnsdale and Sale sites.

While at opposite end of the state, the Mildura and East Gippsland sites have a lot in common and it was great to discuss how each overcomes obstacles such as distance, staffing, tutors, course delivery and IT.

It was a fantastic visit with the sharing of ideas and experience across simulation, academia and administration that will be very useful for all staff and may well be something that the School of Rural Health sites do more regularly.

The visit was so successful that all agreed it should be undertaken twice a year with a reciprocal visit to be scheduled.