The 2015 13th National Rural Health Conference was held in Darwin from 24-27 May 2015.  The conference was well attended with approximately 1200 attendees.

SRH presentations

The School of Rural Health was well represented at the conference with many staff and students presenting at the conference:

• Marnie Connolly: Innovative professional development for Primary Care nurses – a rural paradigm.
• Belinda O’Sullivan: Planning integrated outreach: service patterns from the metropolitan and rural hubs PhD
• Angelo D’Amore: Rural research capacity building: a five-year case study.
• Lisa Lavey, Matthew McGrail: Getting research evidence into rural health policies: what does it take?
• Deborah Russell: Important new empirical evidence to guide rural health workforce retention policies
• Jenny May: Scope of practice in rural Australia- Horses for courses? Or a one horse race? PhD
• Angela Crombie & Evan Stanyer: Development of regional dementia services pathways PhD
• Peter Orpin, Judi Walker, Matthew Carroll, Kim Boyer: Supporting Rural Ageing Well: How important is the rural?

Keynote addresses

The Opening Address by Senator Fiona Nash, Assistant Federal Minister for Health, announced an overhauled and much fairer GP Rural Incentives Program which means smaller rural communities would be able to more easily attract and retain GPs. Some 450 rural and regional towns will receive greater incentives to attract GPs from 1 July 2015.  An independent expert panel consulted with stakeholders before compiling a report for the Minister, using the new Modified Monash Model to classify rural and regional towns and cities.  Minister Nash acknowledged the work of this expert panel and gave particular acknowledgement to Emeritus Professor John Humphreys for his work as a member of the expert panel and for the Modified Monash Model.

Professor John Wakerman from Flinders NT presented a keynote address on the Monday afternoon entitled “Research excellence, knowledge exchange and policy development”.  This presentation drew on the work of the Centre of Research Excellence in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care to examine the key features of an effective knowledge exchange process.  John discussed the Modified Monash Model and also acknowledged the work of John Humphreys and Matthew McGrail.

Click to view John Wakerman’s presentation.

Dr Carole Reeve, a PhD student of the Centre of Research Excellence in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care (CRE), based at Alice Springs, presented a very interesting and thought provoking opening address on the Sunday evening entitled “The challenge of providing fair care” also referring to the work of the CRE.

Click to view Carole Reeve’s presentation.

Networking

The conference was jam-packed with entertainment, information and lots of food.  Importantly, it provided wonderful opportunities for our School of Rural Health staff and students to connect with other researchers and services from across the country who are interested in similar areas.

Although there was little time available to see the sights of Darwin, a few managed to find a little time to wrestle with crocs and enjoy the local cuisine.

Lisa Lavey

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

Michelle's and Stephen's new baby, Sophie

Michelle Ryan from SRH Latrobe Valley & West Gippsland and her partner Stephen Rentch are the proud parents of Sophie Tina Rentch.

Sophie was born on Friday, October 17 and weighed in at 7lb 14oz.

SRH staff extend their congratulations to the family.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare has released a new report late in August, titled ‘Alcohol and other drug treatment services in Australia 2011-12.’

Almost 700 agencies provided more than 150,000 treatment episodes for alcohol and other drug issues in Australia in 2011-12.

Most of the closed episodes provided in 2011-12 were for clients receiving treatment for their own drug use, and these clients tended to be male and in their 20s and 30s.

Alcohol was the most common principal drug of concern, accounting for almost half of these closed episodes, and counselling was the most common type of treatment.

View the media release and download the full report for free online.

Writing an evidence summary requires particular skills. Staff of the School of Rural Health have an opportunity to attend a one-day workshop designed to teach academics how to write and publish evidence summaries.

When: Thursday 5 September 2013, 10am – 4pm
Where: Room M4 Building 13C, Monash University’s Clayton campus

Jointly sponsored by MUDRIH and the School of Nursing and Midwifery, the workshop will be facilitated by the Chronic Disease Management Node, an affiliated centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute.

The course is free, but there are limited places. Download the flyer for full details. To register, email practicedevelopment-sonm@monash.edu.

The July Ed Tech Inservice will be in and around iPads and Androids.

Fiona McCook and Helen Chambers will be facilitating a session “Cool Tools on my Android/iPad.”

There will be an emphasis on sharing which apps may be useful, while also learning from the experiences of others. The central theme is: “We are not experts in this field, just willing to share and learn from others!”

The Inservice takes place on Wednesday 17 July from 1pm until 2pm, via video and teleconference from the MUDRIH videoconference room.

How to join the session: In person at the MUDRIH videoconference room or from a videoconference endpoint:

• inside Monash dial 35929
• outside Monash dial 35929@monash.edu or 130.194.20.3 then enter conference 29
• From a telephone (audio only) dial 03 9903 5929