WONCA is an acronym for World Organization of National Colleges, Academies and Academic Associations of General Practitioners/Family Physicians.  A shorter version is ‘World Organization of Family Doctors’.

Dr Jan Cole, Monash graduate, is featured as WONCA’s family doctor for August.  Jan is an associate professor and academic family physician at Monash University in Melbourne and has been a family doctor for more than 25 years.

Jan is only the second Australian GP to be honoured in this way.  The previous Australian was another Monash Graduate, Professor John Murtagh.

Pictured from left to right are: The Hon. David Davis, MLC (Minister for Ageing and Minister for Health) Helen Chambers (Database Manager/Research Officer, MUDRIH), Nicole Steers(Executive Directory Ambulatory Care (past), LCHS), Marianne Cullen ( Project Leader and Regional Wound Consultant, LCHS), Ben Leigh (Chief Executive Officer, LCHS), Rachel Strauss (Executive Directory Ambulatory Care (acting), LCHS) John Guy (Chairperson Board of Directors, LCHS)

A big congratulations to the Mobile Wound Care Team.

At the 2013 Victoria Public Healthcare awards, the collaboration of  MUDRIH and Latrobe Community Health Service (LCHS) received a Gold award in the category of “Optimising healthcare through e-health and communications technology”. The topic of our research: “Mobile Wound Care (MWC)”.

E-health and communications technology can improve the way the health system and the community access or receive relevant information, when it is needed and in an understandable and useable form. E-health and communications technology can improve knowledge management and provide ongoing benefits to health services, clinicians and consumers, their carers and families and the broader community. This award recognises innovative use of e-heath and communication technologies that improve knowledge management resulting in better practice, management, patient outcomes or experience.

MWC enables nurses to enter the clinical details of their patients’ wounds, including digital photos into a web-based program. If specialist support is required, referral can be made to the regional nurse consultant (RNC). The RNC can then access the electronic record, reply and make clinical recommendations almost immediately.

MWC represents a unique effort to provide remote consultancy to regional clientele while monitoring treatment and cost outcomes for health services and patients. It has resulted in I improved care and expertise in collecting data and will inform future discussions about a national wound care minimum dataset. The research has facilitated skill development in all participating organisations and enhanced collaboration across the region, including between LCHS and Monash University – a partnership which will lead to future research collaborations.

Well done to all and particularly to LCHS for another great collaboration.

Mildura Regional Clinical School has been successful in receiving a grant for $38,000 through the Mallee Health Foundation to purchase a SimMom. The Foundation, previously known as the Mildura Base Hospital Foundation, was established and began fundraising in 1987.

The Mallee Health Foundation was one of the generous donors towards the purchase of SimMan back in 2010.

The entire family of SimMan, SimMom, SimBaby and SimNewby will complete the recently upgraded skills lab in Mildura.

Forty-five battered, scruffy, highly loved teddy bears made the exciting journey with children from Parkland’s kindergarten in Morwell to attend the teddy bear hospital at Gippsland Regional Clinical School recently.

A number of Year 3B students put aside their study to introduce the children to a range of positive experiences relating to going to hospital.

Discovering x-rays and bones was a highlight for the children who got to see what our finger bones look like under our skin, plus a teddy bear x-ray. This led into a session about plastering and the lucky children were able to get their thumb or finger plastered.

Students spoke to the children abut emergencies and the number to call if there is an accident.   However, it was pleasing to see that a number of them already had this knowledge. They also got to play with stethoscopes, oxygen masks, and tendon hammers to become familiar with some common equipment they may encounter if attending hospital themselves.

Finally the weather was beautiful and allowed the children to have some time to play outside exploring the topic of exercise. Medical students Sean and Cindy even learnt how to play “duck, duck, goose” and the children’s giggles could be heard across the courtyard.

A big thank you goes to Manny’s Market Traralgon who donated a box of fresh fruit for the children to snack on and discuss healthy eating options.

Overall the teachers, parents and children from Parklands were very impressed by the professionalism shown by the Year 3B students and cannot thank Alex and the students enough for giving up their study time so close to exams to provide such a wonderful, educational learning experience for all involved.

Meagan Presley, Clinical Educator, Gippsland Regional Clinical School

Eleven of the cohort of 14 nursing students who completed their studies at the Bairnsdale site

Monash University nursing students at the Bairnsdale site have had a successful year with all 14 third year students receiving a graduate nurse placement. These placements range across several health services including Monash Health, Northern Health, Latrobe Regional Health Service, Central Gippsland Health Service, Bairnsdale Regional Health Service, Omeo District Health and a private GP clinic.

Well done all.

We had the opportunity of running a GP Anaesthetic Registrar Workshop which was well attended by all the GPA registrars in Gippsland.

The workshop was kindly supported by Southern GP Training (SGPT).

The day was a mixture of lectures from anaesthetic specialists and experienced GP anaesthetists, an ultrasound workshop and scenarios made realistic with monitors that alarmed and desaturated.
It was a splendid opportunity to utilise the excellent simulation facilities at Sale.

Dr Antony Wong, GP Anaesthetist

The Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing have engaged consultants to undertake a national evaluation of Phase 3 of the Primary Health Care Research, Evaluation and Development (PHCRED) Strategy.

The PHCRED Strategy was established by the Australian Government in 2000 to focus on improvement to patient outcomes through better primary health care systems, services and practice.

Building on the foundations of the PHCRED Strategy’s previous phases, Phase 3 of the PHCRED Strategy has moved towards a priority-driven approach with a particular focus on primary health care systems research and aims to continue to improve Australia’s capacity in the primary health care research sector, add to the body of knowledge and evidence of primary health care research, and actively promulgate primary health care research to engender effective knowledge exchange.

The evaluation aims to determine the effectiveness and efficiency, appropriateness, and opportunities for possible future improvements to the Strategy, and/or alternative options to the Strategy.  Researchers, policy makers and people involved in service delivery in primary health care in Australia will be asked to participate in the evaluation. International experts in primary health care research will also be asked to participate.

The Centre of Research Excellence in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care (CRE) is one of nine CREs funded through the Australian Primary Health Care Research Institute (APHCRI) and the PHCRED Strategy Phase 3, and the entire CRE team has been asked to participate in the evaluation.

The first part of our evaluation took place 14-16 October 2013 in Alice Springs with the evaluators interviewing CRE team members from the Centre for Remote Health.  The evaluators then visited the Bendigo campus on 21-22 October 2013 to meet with CRE team members from Bendigo and Gippsland.  Evaluators will be meeting the Broken Hill CRE team and all other APHCRI CREs over the next few months.

Following these visits, we have received very positive feedback about the activities of the CRE.  The evaluation team commented that they were impressed with its governance; in particular the outstanding project management of our CRE, and the visitors were grateful for the time CRE members took in speaking to them.  The interviews also provided an opportunity for the evaluators to gain a fuller understanding of our CRE research program and primary health care research in general.

It is expected that the final report of Phase 3 of the PHCRED Strategy will be available in May 2014.

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.

Dr Hanan Khalil, the Chronic Disease Management director with the Evidence Transfer Award

At the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI) 2013 International Convention in October, special recognition awards and certificates of recognition were presented to four international centres/nodes, including the Chronic Disease Management Node. Dr Hanan Khalil, Director of the Chronic Disease Management Node (CDM), received the Evidence Transfer Award for the significant development and maintenance of the CDM.

The Joanna Briggs Institute is an international organisation, operating more than 50 collaborating centres and groups around the world. JBI is a global collaboration of health scientists and clinicians that operate as an independent, not-for-profit organisation that seeks to improve global health, focusing on researching evidence-based healthcare.  JBI is based in University of Adelaide, South Australia.

The Chronic Disease Management Node (CDM) is a collaboration between the Monash University School of Rural Health and the School of Nursing and Midwifery with Latrobe Community Health Services (Inc.) and Latrobe Regional Hospital. The CDM is based at Monash University and is an affiliate centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI).

The CDM centre focuses on promoting the development and implementation of evidence-based health care in chronic disease. To date the CDM centre has developed over 70 evidence summaries related to chronic diseases to help clinicians make decisions ‘at-the-bedside’. The centre conducts five executive committee meetings throughout the year, publishes two newsletters, has an internationally recognised expert reference group and a corresponding reference group that contributes to peer reviewing of the materials published by the centre. The CDM also focuses on offering electives for students interested in evidence-based health care research and publications. In the near future, the centre will focus on training clinicians, academics and students to undertake quantitative, qualitative and economic evaluation systematic reviews.

Mildura Regional Clinical School have developed Mini Medical Academy Days (MMAD) to expose local secondary school students in the Sunraysia region to rural health careers. The days involved hands-on clinical experience run by medical students and Monash University staff to raise awareness of pathways to further studies in health. The students have the opportunity to engage with current medical students at the clinical school and to learn about what it is like to study in the rural setting.

The half-day program consists of four stations focused on a different skill required of a medical student, which the students rotate through over the course of the session. These involve a grand tour of the hospital, plastering, a simulation session with SimMan 3G and basic life support. For some students this may be their only exposure to life at university, which may otherwise be offered at open days in Melbourne. It gives them a chance to ask questions and experience a day in the life of a medical student.

One of the highlights of the program so far is the stories from Monash medical students about their personal journeys at university and the application process. This highlights to the secondary students that attending university is a real and achievable goal. To date, four local secondary schools have participated in the initiative and in future years this will be offered to all schools in the Sunraysia region.