Wedding bells have been ringing throughout the School of Rural Health in Warragul.

Year 4C student from last year, Eleanor Lazarus, married recently and a number of students from her 2013 cohort of year 4C students attended the celebrations.

Eleanor has accepted an intern position with Monash Health so she may return to West Gippsland Hospital in Warragul as a qualified intern in 2015 for a rotation. Some of her fellow students also secured job offers recently so there was cause for celebration throughout the school.

Meanwhile Natalie Smith, another 4C student from 2013, who also completed year 3B at Warragul in 2012, is engaged. Natalie has accepted a position with Ballarat Health where her fiancé is currently an intern.

School staff follow the progress of their students with keen interest.

SRH senior lecturer Anne Leversha presents reference books donated by Monash to two of the participants at the Solomon Islands workshop, pharmacists Delma Ragoso and Solomon Szarbs.

Anne Leversha from the School of Rural Health Latrobe Valley and West Gippsland recently ran a pharmacy workshop with a difference.

Anne and her colleague Amanda Sanburg presented the workshop in a Pacific neighbouring country, the Solomon Islands.

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Dr Joseph Tam

Traralgon paediatrician Dr Joseph Tam hopes to bring more medical practitioners to the region during his tenure as Associate Professor in Rural Medicine (Hospital Medical Education) and Director of School of Rural Health Latrobe Valley & West Gippsland.

The Hong Kong-born doctor said he was honoured and privileged to be appointed to lead Australia’s first school of rural health, with significant medical history and a strong Gippsland connection.

“It started off at the old Moe hospital and has blossomed into a world class rural medical education institution. I’m humbled to be offered the position,” Dr Tam said.

Dr Tam said he has two broad objectives – to work with all stakeholders to fine tune and consolidate the medical program and develop a model of education in partnership with regional hospitals and health services to ensure a sustainable rural health service.

He said the Monash School of Rural Health had been successful establishing training for young doctors in rural health.

“I’ve seen the fruit of hard work of everyone involved, there are seven residents at Latrobe Regional Hospital (LRH) born and bred in Gippsland, who all did their medical training at Churchill,” Dr Tam said.

The well-travelled doctor came to the Latrobe Valley in 1998 from the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney with a belief that “one of the best ways to educate ourselves is to experience what other people do and how they live”.

He became the only visiting consultant paediatrician at LRH and spearheaded the development of the small paediatric service into a department of five paediatricians and six paediatric hospital medical officers, who provide 24-hour, seven-day on-site services at the hospital.

Head of School, Professor Judi Walker, said Dr Tam came to the position with “outstanding credentials”, including extensive experience in the development and delivery of regional medical education.

“He has substantial clinical and administrative leadership experience and has established strong working relationships with his patients and their families, allied health professionals, colleagues, students and health service executives,” Professor Walker said.

Dr Tam will continue his private consulting practice at LRH.

The School of Rural Health Latrobe Valley & West Gippsland has won an MBBS development grant $35,000 to continue development of its e-logbook.

Developed in-house by Bill Haigh, the e-logbook allows Year 4C students to record clinical learning experiences across all disciplines. Students can then review their accumulating clinical portfolio to identify and reflect on strengths and areas for improvement, and to seek feedback to direct their learning efforts. Clinical supervisors can monitor their students’ activities and can compare their recorded experiences to that of the cohort and to other datasets. The ease of reporting enables supervisors to see and address any problems early in a placement.

The current pilot makes use of ICPC-2 codes (International Classification of Primary Care) in  general practice and children’s health placements. ICPC-2 codes enable clinical encounters to be placed within an internationally standardised framework. Clinical learning in   women’s health and medicine of the mind disciplines is task-based, and does not yet link to a standardised database to allow an appreciation of how learning opportunities in the community and hospital based settings are complementary and extend the student’s knowledge and skill base

The new project will develop an equivalent logbook for the medicine of the mind discipline based on the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and mapped to the ICPC-2 codes. This will make it possible to describe  clinical learning experiences across distributed  sites and link these to other disciplines. The project will also automate the logbook’s reporting function and enhance its presentation on the small screens of hand held devices.

The project team hopes the final resource can be marketed outside Monash.

The team includes the Year 4C coordinator; clinical dean; discipline leads for general practice, children’s health and medicine of the mind; the blended learning and simulation coordinator at the Latrobe Valley and West Gippsland; the overall medicine of the mind discipline lead and Year 4C assessment committee coordinator.

Stephen and Michelle have announced their engagement.

Traralgon-based Michelle Ryan has announced her engagement to long-time love, Stephen, whom she has known since she was 12 and he 15. Her new fiancé took her to Tasmania on a holiday and proposed at the summit of Mt Wellington. Unaccustomed to wearing a ring on that hand, Michelle has been forgetting the engagement diamond and has been unable to show it off everywhere. Michelle and Stephen plan to marry within the next 18 months.

Fahad Hanna and his wife Elsie along with Keipha are thrilled to announce the safe arrival of daughter, Teebel Nahomi. Congratulations!

Elaine was part of the beginning of the School of Rural Health

FAREWELL, ADIEU, AU REVOIR, ADIOS

Dear everyone

I would like to take this opportunity to farewell to all my colleagues  at the School of Rural Health and a big thank you for the morning tea, dinner, gifts and good wishes.

The School has been a major part of my life for the last nearly 21 years (good English). I have seen so many changes. I have met some fantastic people, whether they were staff, students, international visitors or stakeholders.  The passion and commitment of staff to the cause of Rural Health never ceases to amaze me. Times have not always been easy, lots of belt tightening, uncertainty about continued funding and other external factors but this still hasn’t deterred people from their continued support of the School.

I think it will take a little while to realise that I am not just on holidays but will keep in touch as I have made many friends during my tenure. Thank you to everyone who has supported me, mentored me, guided me, laughed and cried with me and enjoyed me sharing my stories of my family (or at least been polite enough to pretend they have enjoyed them).  I honestly never thought that I would still be here all this time later, let alone in the position of a School Manager.

I wish the everyone at the School of Rural Health, no matter which site you are on,  every success in the future. You all are truly exceptional people.

Elaine

Elaine Evans

Final year medical and nursing students based in Gippsland are able to meet one of their hurdle requirements in Traralgon rather than having to travel to Melbourne.

The School of Rural Health – Latrobe Valley runs three interprofessional delirium workshops throughout the year and has already facilitated two this year.

The workshop trains student doctors and nurses in classes together using didactic learning, case studies and opportunities to practice on a simulated patient who is simulating a delirious episode. The interprofessional approach is designed to teach students from different health professions to work together to improve the care of patients.

Each workshop runs for three hours with half the workshop spent in tutorial and half in simulation. Student groups comprise around three medical and seven nursing students, with four workshops conducted in a day.

The program is based on the PhD studies of Debra Kielgadie and developed by the Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery Professor Wendy Cross and Director of Geriatric Medicine at Eastern Health Professor Peteris Darzins.