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.

The weather over the last few weeks has been rather unlike what would be expected in spring. Spring should be bbq weather, so with that in mind a farewell for the Year 4C Bairnsdale medical students was planned and, as has been the case lately, the usually beautiful Gippsland weather turned on us.

Despite this, and with a couple of minor modifications, the students were farewelled in style by staff and others who had played an important part in the program throughout the year. Rain and cool temperatures didn’t dampen the enjoyment we all had and it is with a mixture of sadness and optimism that the 2013 student cohort was farewelled and sent on their way with our best wishes and hopes that we see them again in Gippsland, perhaps as practising doctors.

David Campbell, Director, and Marnie Connolly, the Academic Coordinator of the Year 4C program at Bairnsdale, congratulated the students for their hard work and commitment throughout the year and thanked all staff for their valuable contributions to the ongoing success of the integrated program in East Gippsland.

Each student was invited to give a vignette of one occasion they remember about their year. The guests were engaged with stories of humour, compassion, humility and generosity.

We look forward to following the students in their progress. They will be missed by everyone.

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

Photo by Lee Cheney

Among the organised chaos of building the New Bendigo Hospital, these delightful birds were entertaining School of Rural Health staff at the Bendigo office last week.

Their happy squawking while foraging for nectar in a bottle brush outside the Bendigo offices, helped to drown out the constant low rumbling of the hundreds of trucks removing excavated soil and rubble from the New Hospital building site.

Lionel Dukakis (Program Manager of Wulgunggo Nglau) and the students in front of a sculpture made by the program participants and local Indigenous Elders.

Early on a cold and drizzly September morning 14 undergraduate students left Inverloch with their trusty tutor and coordinator in tow. It was a journey that would see them traverse the beautiful South Gippsland country side in search of the elusive Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place nestled high in the hills above Yarram.

Wulgunggo Ngalu Learning Place is a program run by the Department of Justice for adult indigenous men undertaking a community-based order. It is a live-in facility that aims to connect and strengthen indigenous men back to their culture. In the Gunai Kurni Language “Wulgunggo Ngalu” means “which way together”, a sentiment strongly held by all who lead this program. Our amazing guide for the day was the passionate Lionel Dukakis who, after warmly welcoming us to country, took us on a very informative tour of the facility explaining as we went the education, skills and lifestyle programs the facility run. The participants also have the opportunity of “giving back” to the local community and to take part in local community activities, like lawn mower racing!

After sitting down to lunch together, the students took part in a forum where they could openly discuss contemporary indigenous issues. Lionel encouraged students to ask the questions that they always wanted to ask, but were maybe a little too embarrassed to broach. An excited discussion followed, and it was hard not to be taken by Lionel’s contagious fervour for indigenous welfare. I think it was unanimous – an informative day was had by all and  at the end of the day 14 students left with a new found enthusiasm for indigenous health and welfare, and a greater understanding of indigenous culture.

A combined student farewell for Year 3B and Year 4C was held in Sale with approximately 50 people in attendance. Tutors, practice managers, specialists, interns and registrars all came along to farewell a terrific group of students.

Drs Iain Nicolson and Howard Connor addressed the group to wish the students well and to thank all those who have contributed to the program throughout the year. The Year 3B students received a special mention for their effort in the John Desmond Occupational Medicine exam which is held each year and to Dr Lloyd Waters, their tutor.

The East Gippsland Regional Clinical School wish the students all the best in their forthcoming exams and we are looking forward to welcoming a number of them back for another year in 2014.

Dr Rebecca Kippen, focusing on her work as a demographer, led an internal seminar and discussion that reached staff across Central and East Victoria. The title of the seminar was ‘Where to from here? Population and health projections for Victoria, Australia and the world.’

Demographers project populations by making assumptions about future levels of age-specific fertility, mortality and migration. The United Nations projects that if fertility rates globally continue to fall, world population will level off at around 11 billion by the end of this century. Currently world population is increasing by 1 billion every 12 years. The Australian bureau of Statistics projects Australia’s population may increase to 36 million by 2056.

The proportion of the population aged 65 years and over is projected to rise to 24% (from 14% in 2012). This population ageing has significant implications for the provision of health services into the future.

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.

It is important that Monash University correctly identify and classify research outputs for submission both to external research assessment exercises and for internal reporting purposes, such as assessment of researchers’ performance and academic promotion.

All publications must meet the definition of research. Refer to on-line Policy.

Further to the publication information provided in the October issue, we bring to your attention publications that are classed as Non-HERDC.  (Conference publications, abstracts, posters, letters to the editor, research reports, other etc.) At a University Academic Board meeting, it was decided that Non-HERDC publications need not be entered onto the system.  However, this means that they won’t show up on your ROPES profile.

Non-HERDC publications are at present entered onto the system after category 1 publications (A1, B1, C1), which have priority. After discussion between the Research Administration Manager and the Research Performance Quality and Reporting portfolio members it has been decided to continue entering Non-HERDC publications as before. It will, therefore, be up to individual authors to choose whether to submit or not.

If you decide to submit Non-HERDC publications please get them in for processing as soon as possible, ensuring that you provide all relevant information. Your Publication folder has all the information and the forms required to facilitate the process. The procedure is located at the front of the folder and accompanying forms are listed with each category. Once the publication has been entered onto the system it will appear in your ROPES profile.

As with all publications, the author is responsible for completing the FOR codes and providing all the information requested on the Publication Form (in your folder). Please ensure that all requested information on the Publication Form (eg. E1/4 – Conference publications/abstracts, KO, O, etc) is sent with a copy of the article/booklet/poster to Janelle McGrail (janelle.mcgrail@monash.edu) in the south-east or Sandra Paschkow (sandra.paschkow@monash.edu) in the north-west.

The current FOR codes (for Medicine, Nursing & Health Sciences) are available on-line.

Further information about publication categories can be obtained on-line .