The review of Rural Health Matters over the last couple of months has revealed a fair degree of consensus about what will make the staff newsletter more relevant.

Frequency

• Monthly was felt to be more frequent than necessary.
• Quarterly, while suggested, was felt by others to be too infrequent resulting in either too large a newsletter or out-of-date material.
• Bi-monthly was agreed to be a good compromise.

Format

Time poverty was a consistent theme. It was suggested that a format that allowed the newsletter to be printed and read away from the computer would make it easier for many staff to read it.

(MUDRIH staff suggested that the school needs a repository of information to which staff can contribute directly and in real-time. It may not be a practical format for the staff newsletter at this stage, but it most surely highlights the direction in which the school’s intranet should be heading.)

Content

It was agreed that the Head of School was the most appropriate source of news about major operational and policy change, and should be the subject of separate communication from the HoS.

While it became clear that there are distinct communities of interest across the school, staff generally wanted to know what other sites were doing and how they are meeting challenges.

Subjects of interest included:

• Education activities
• Community engagement
• Student stories
• New staff – professional background, their new role, days/hours of work, contact details and a photo.
• Calendar of events, for example, journal club/research seminars, Ed Tech Inservices

There was much discussion about what sort of research information was sought and whether this should be included in Rural Health Matters or separate research news. Suggestions included:

• reports on graduate research student presentations
• conference reports
• papers published
• grant opportunities
• ways of disseminating research

Items on any subject need to be succinct.

Over the next two months, we will be working out the best way to meet the news needs idenfitied by staff and introducing changes. We are always open to suggestions for improvements.

Thank you to sites for allowing Helen to pop into staff meetings to ask about how to make the newsletter more relevant.

Monash has licences for a range of software that you can install yourself without needing authorisation. From browsers to Adobe Acrobat (full version) to Cisco Unified Video Advantage (which gives you a one-on-one video phone call with other users) to MS Project – it’s all here for your use.

The My Software catalogue is available from the Start button on your computer on all sites except Mildura. If you’re in Mildura you’ll need to log a job with Service Desk Online to have it installed the next time a technician visits.

This year’s theme for International Women’s Day is ‘Make It Happen’. To mark the occasion, the School of Rural Health is hosting a webinar looking at advocacy as a tool for change.

This will be a practical session, giving you tangible strategies to use in making your own passion happen.

When: Wednesday 4 March 11.30am – 12.00 noon
Where: Via Zoom
Register here to take part

Innovative: Cathy Ward explains the school's use of Zoom to visitors at our Innovation & Technology Expo stand.

The School of Rural Health put its use of technology on show at the Innovation and Technology Expo in September. The event featured exhibitions, information sessions and demonstrations specific to PhD students, early career researchers, supervisors and other research staff.

Dr Julie Willems represented the school and contributed two demonstations of our use of Zoom, a cloud-based meeting technolgy currently being trialed by the University.

Two Ed Tech Inservice sessions were broadcast to the expo which generated a lot of interest. Julie and Cathy Ward were able to explain to visitors how the school uses Zoom. Both sessions demonstrated participants across multiple sites working on the same presentation or document.

Cathy and Melissa McNicol, who also attended the expo, will be disseminating all the useful tips they learned over the next couple of weeks. If you’d like to know more about what they learned, please contact them.

Zoom, zoom: Julie Willems conducts a training session on Prezi using the online meeting application, Zoom.

Graduates: Kendall Livingstone, Judi Lawless, Tracey Minster and Jo Kingsley successfully completed their accounting studies.

A number of dedicated School of Rural Health personnel recently celebrated an impressive professional development achievement.

Kendall Livingstone from SRH Mildura, along with Tracey Minster,  Judi Lawless and Jo Kingsley all based in Gippsland, completed their Certificate IV of Accounting and Diploma of Accounting.

The women celebrated with their classmates at a graduation ceremony and afternoon tea on 10 September at Monash University’s Caulfield campus.

All four had attended 12 workshops and finished 12 intensive assignments as well as four Recognised Prior Learning (RPL) modules while juggling busy work and home lives.

Congratulations also to Michelle Ryan who completed her Certificate IV in Bookkeeping.

The women chose to undertake this study to build on their existing skills and knowledge of finance and accounting. Their enhanced expertise in all facets of financial reporting, budgeting and the legal context of accounting is expected to deliver genuine benefits to SRH.

Are paper pay slips just cluttering up your pigeon hole? You do have the option to opt out of receiving a printed pay slip every fortnight if you find you don’t need them. (And some sites haven’t received them in a long time anyway.)

All your pay slips are available online through ESS if you do need to print a copy.

Save a tree – email payroll@monash.edu and ask them to opt you out.

Professor Debra Nestel's work in the use of simulation in healthcare education has been recognised by the presitgious Ray Page Lifetime Simulation Achievement Award.

Professor Debra Nestal received the Ray Page Lifetime Simulation Achievement Award at the SimHealth conference in late August. The award recognises an outstanding contribution to the development of modelling and simulation in science, technology, policy or industry in Australia. It is only presented if a candidate who meets the criteria is nominated.

As Professsor of Simulation Education in Healthcare for the School of Rural Health, her research interests include the role of simulation in supporting learning, particularly in procedural and operative skills.

Debra pioneered the concept of patient-focused simulation (PFS) with her colleague Roger Kneebone. In PFS, a simulated patient and simulator model (urinary catheterization, suture pad etc) are ‘combined’ in a simulated environment in order to provide a learner-centred experience. The approach has been adopted internationally for teaching, learning and assessing procedural skills in undergraduate medical education.

The Simulation Achievement Award is recognition of her significant contribution to the use of simulation in healthcare education.

L-R: Rob Pike, Judi Walker, Graham Allardice, Joseph Tam, Wayne Hodgson

The School of Rural Health hosted the Faculty Review Panel recently.

Three of the Faculty’s deputy deans undertook a week-long visit to SRH sites throughout Victoria. They were Review Panel Chair, Professor Rob Pike (Deputy Dean Academic Planning), Professor Michelle Leech (Deputy Dean MBBS) and Professor Wayne Hodgson (Deputy Dean Education).

They were joined by the three other Panel members – Professor Judi Walker (Head of School, SRH), Mr Doug McGregor (School Manager, School of Biomedical Sciences) and Mr Graham Allardice (Senior Operations Manager, SRH).

Open Day activity

Monash Open Day 2014 was held on Sunday 3 August and School of Rural Health staff and students were out in force again in this year at Clayton providing information to prospective MBBS students about rural placement options across the Monash medical curriculum.

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The Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences updated its policy in May on the use of corporate credit cards.

The new policy emphasises that credit cards should only be used for travel and client entertainment expenses. All other purchases are to go through the Procure to Payment services hubs.

The new policy is available on the faculty’s policies page.