Do you want to make a change to the food you eat but your healthcare provider doesn’t cover the cost of seeing a dietition?

The Monash Nutrition Clinic is now offering individual dietetic consultations at a reduced rate. Just like a teaching hospital, where you are seen by trainee doctors, the Monash clinic is staffed by trainee dietitians, supervised by an experienced and qualified Accredited Practising Dietitian.

The clinic is located in the BASE (Be Active Sleep & Eat) facility in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. It is available to staff, friends and family of Monash University and Monash Health, and the local community. See the BASE website for more details.

Pam Harvey, Lecturer at School of Rural Health Bendigo, has 23 educational DVDs in the Medical Education Unit library system.  These DVDs come from the CEO of the now defunded Rural Health Education Foundation, Helen Craig.  Helen sent these DVDs to the School of Rural Health and Pam Harvey can be contacted on 5440 9083 should you wish to borrow them.  These DVDs are available to all SRH staff.

• Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Guidelines Series
• All Ears:  Healthy Hearing in Indigenous Communities
• Fly-in-Fly-out: A Healthcare Option
• Acne Vulgaris: Not Just Skin Deep
• Endometrial Cancer: Investigations and Referral
• Outback Healers and Heroines: Women GPs in Rural Practice
• The Discomfort Zone: A Guide to Managing Difficult Consultations
• Helping Children with Autism
• Women in Rural Medicine
• A is for Asthma: Managing Asthma in Primary School Kids
• Self-harming Behaviours: Management in Adolescence
• Telehealth: The New Bush Telegraph
• Natural Disasters and Psychological Trauma
• DCIS: Is it cancer, doctor?
• Healthy Eating: The latest Australian dietary guidelines

The 'Sven's Swim' scenario

New MBBS students learned personal and professional strategies at the MBBS Year 1 Transition Program to help them make the change from secondary school to tertiary study.

The program was run on 27 and 28 February at Clayton and the School of Rural Health actively participated in the program again. Professor Judi Walker provided an introduction to rural health and a rural Problem Based Learning (PBL) session provided the new-to-course students with their first such experience. Year 5 tutors facilitated a scenario called ‘Sven’s Swim’ (a near-drowning event in Mildura) and the visiting staff added a rural perspective and assisted with the clinical skills component.

Staff from the School of Rural Health units including Deborah Hewetson (Bairnsdale), Alda Dunlop (Sale), Claire Akers (Latrobe Valley), Jenny Timmis (Mildura) and Geoff Solarsh (Bendigo) kindly gave their time and actively participated in group sessions.

Geoff Solarsh also presented a ‘Welcome to Extended Rural Cohort (ERC) session at lunch to our new ERC students. Some previous students attended this session and shared some great stories. This was followed by a lovely lunch for all our ERC students and helpers.

David Campbell reports on the first education forum for the year which agreed that career decisions rather than graduate intentions will provide a better measure of the Rural Clinical School program’s success.

The first education forum for the 2014 year was held at the School of Rural Health – East Gippsland in Bairnsdale on 18 March. The topic of the forum was the Graduate Tracking Project conducted by the School of Rural Health. This is an important project that will demonstrate the effectiveness of the Rural Clinical School program in contributing to rural medical workforce.

Data gathered from both the Medical Schools Outcomes Database (MSOD) and the rural clinical school graduate intentions survey conducted by FRAME (Federation of Rural Australian Medical Educators) will contribute to Monash’s Graduate Tracking project.

This education forum provided an opportunity for academic representatives of the school’s north-west and south-east education committees to examine the details of the Graduate Tracking project and discuss the next steps in the project.

Presentations from Natalie Radomski, Laura Major and Helen Chambers set the scene for the forum. Natalie presented a comprehensive overview of recent literature from other Rural Clinical Schools in Australia on factors related to their own data on graduate outcomes and intentions; and Laura and Helen provided an update of the FRAME and MSOD data projects.

Delegates then broke into three groups to discuss aspects of the Graduate Tracking project, with a view to recommendations for achievable future steps for the project.

It was generally acknowledged that the Rural Clinical School program has reached a point where we are only beginning to be able to measure data on long-term career decisions of graduates. It was agreed that career decisions are a far more powerful indicator of the success or otherwise of the Rural Clinical School program than career intentions of students or recent graduates.

It was therefore agreed by delegates to the forum that the current MSOD and FRAME databases will be examined from the perspective of their ability to demonstrate data on long-term career decisions; in addition, data sets such as the current AHPRA (Australian Health Professional Registration Agency) database and the Monash University alumni database will be examined and perhaps utilised if they are able to provide information on career choices of Rural Clinical School graduates.

It was agreed that this activity will be taken forward by the SRH Rural MBBS Graduate Tracking project working group.

Many thanks to all those who contributed to the success of this forum, including members of the planning group; special thanks to Deb Johnston and staff at Bairnsdale for hosting the forum, and the magnificent catering!

David Campbell, Director
School of Rural Health – East and South Gippsland

The School of Rural Health hosted Sue Berry from the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) who was in Australia during February on a study tour. Sue is the Associate Dean (interim) Continuing Health Professional Education at NOSM and is interested in how other medical and health professional schools view “community engagement” in the work that they do.

Squeezing in Monash between visits to James Cook University and Flinders University, she visited Bendigo, Clayton, Churchill and Bairnsdale where she took part in a community engagement workshop hosted by the School of Rural Health – Bairnsdale.

While in Bendigo she met with key staff and, over lunch, described the medical degree offered by NOSM. Of particular interest were the clinical attachments students undertake for weeks at a time in a remote aboriginal settlement. Students sometimes have to fly into these settlements and outside access is very difficult, particularly in harsh weather conditions. In the afternoon, Sue visited a local Bendigo medical practice, Creek Street Medical Practice, with Dr Dennis O’Connor.

As it happens, Sue has a Bendigo connection through her daughter marrying a Bendigo man. Sue and the Bendigo mother-in-law are eagerly awaiting their first grandchild.

Dinner to celebrate Laura Major's 25 years with Monash

On 8 October, 25 people gathered to celebrate a quarter of a century that Laura Major has been with Monash University.  Laura began working at Monash in 1988 and during that time worked in 5 areas, currently settled in the School of Rural Health as Rural Education Manager in Clayton.

It was a lovely evening, with Head of School, Professor Judi Walker, acknowledging Laura’s contributions and good company sharing food and raising the glass in celebration.

Congratulations, Laura!

Professor Nestel leads the national NHET-Sim Program (National Health Education and Training in Simulation).  This program is for simulation educators and has received funding from Health Workforce Australia until the end of June 2014. Any clinician or educator interested in healthcare simulation is eligible to take the program which is offered free. The program is available as a combination of e-learning and workshops or e-learning only.

The Faculty is pleased to announce the next round of the Learning & Teaching travel grants has been released. The scheme is designed to assist academic staff to attend and/or present papers at conferences that will develop their educational skills and teaching and learning research activity.

The grants are allocated by the Office of the Deputy Dean (Education) on a competitive basis. It is anticipated that approximately 20 grants will be allocated in this round.

The closing date for applications is 30 November 2013

Round 1, 2014 will cover attendance at conferences commencing between: 1 January 2014 and 30 June  2014

The guidelines and application form are now available.  This link takes you to the Intranet page of ‘Education: Office of the Deputy Dean Education’.  Under the heading ‘Support for Staff’ you will find ‘Learning & Teaching Travel Grants (DOC)’.

Please note: Staff from Malaysia are eligible for travel grants, however, there are restrictions applied. The restrictions are that it can be up to $1,000 and for travel to Australia to attend a conference or collaborate with Monash AU staff

PLEASE NOTE: completed applications will need to be sent to DDE Applications.

Rural medicine attracted a lot of attention

Monash Open Day 2013 was held in Clayton on Sunday 4 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.

The north-west and south-east regions were well represented with staff and students from regional clinical schools making themselves available to meet prospective students and answer their questions in relation to rural placements in the MBBS course.

Professor Shane Bullock, Director of Gippsland Medical School; Cameron Sharp, Year 5 ERC student and Sam Alexander, Year 3B graduate entry student all presented at the four MBBS Admissions information sessions on the day.  These sessions were very well attended, with unofficial numbers in the 2400 vicinity.

Laura and Terri catch their breath after all their hard work organising the SRH contribution to Open Day.

Dr Julie Willems at MUDRIH is to be congratulated following her selection for the 2013 Mentoring Scheme for Women.

The E-Learning Designer and Educational Developer will be a mentee on the scheme, which is designed to increase women’s access to the learning and developmental opportunities provided by a mentoring relationship.

The Scheme involves a senior, more experienced individual (the mentor) facilitating the learning and development of the mentee by offering support, information and advice about career planning and skill development, and access to organisational knowledge and networks.

The next step for Julie is to attend a Mentee Preparation Session, held to help both the mentee and mentor prepare for the program.

Each mentee is matched with a suitable mentor, with the pair meeting about once a month during the course of the program from June to December this year.

This year’s program includes 32 academic and 30 professional staff from across the University who have been selected as mentees.

… and also becomes an author

Further congratulations to Dr Julie Willems of MUDRIH for the recent publication of her new book ‘Global challenges and perspectives in blended and distance learning.’

The book highlights the perspective, challenges and current practices within higher and distance education around the world. As a reference source it brings together a unique view of global research essential for academics, managers and leaders, researchers and practitioners in higher education and distance education.

The book co-authored by Dr Julie Willems.