The Chinese delegation at the Bendigo Regional Clinical School with staff.

A delegation of Chinese health professionals, hosted by Bendigo TAFE, visited the Bendigo Regional Clinical School recently and was particularly intrigued by our training methods and use of facilities such as simulation suites.

The group of 10 health professionals (nine medical specialists and one nurse) is from Lanzhou, Gansu Province, North West China, and is visiting Australia for a study program to improve English language skills and learn about the Australian Healthcare system and culture.

Bendigo staff had the privilege of spending time with the delegates for a morning before the delegates visited the La Trobe Rural School, also situated in the Bendigo Hospital education precinct.

The group will spend three months in Australia with members visiting health services across Bendigo and the Loddon Mallee Region for the first two months, followed by a month in Melbourne. The delegates’ medical specialties are in Obstetrics and Gynecology, Psychiatry, Cardiology, Respiratory medicine, Dental, Radiology/Ultrasound and Nursing.

The Chinese delegates were given a tour around the Monash building by Bendigo Regional Manager, Kerrie Thomsen and they enjoyed browsing through the Bendigo Health library.

The favored opportunity was observing students participating in a clinical simulation session run by Cathy Driver in the Monash Clinical Skills and Simulation Centre. The delegates are familiar with clinical skills and simulation suites but were particularly interested to see how they are used them in Australia. They were surprised that only a small group of three students were being taught as well as the relaxed and friendly environment.

They particularly enjoyed seeing the equipment in use during the simulation and asked many questions about the cost of the center and the cost of training a medical student.

After the presentation of a gift to each delegate and a group photo, Monash staff were invited to visit Lanzhou if ever in China. Thank you to Angela Cahill, Director, Health and Human Services at Bendigo TAFE, for inviting Bendigo to participate in a lovely morning.

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

Associate Professor Leigh Kinsman has travelled to Canada to work on an evaluation project of Saskatchewan’s health care transformation using the Lean Management System.

Leigh will work with Dr Thomas Rotter from the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, University of Saskatchewan, and meet with a research team from the University of Western Ontario.

The group is looking to adapt the Lean Management System to the health industry to reduce health-care costs, maximize efficiencies and improve patient oriented experiences. The initial focus for the group is on leadership, strategic alignment, training, and creation of a supportive infrastructure.

This is the planning phase to develop a complete evaluation plan where the goal is a whole system transformation that produces ‘better health, better value, better care, and better teams.’

The third issue of the Centre of Research Excellence (CRE) in Rural and Remote Primary Health Care newsletter will be available early in July.

If you would like to go on the electronic mailing list or if you would prefer to receive a hard copy by snail mail, send an email lisa.lavey@monash.edu to place your order.

The newsletter will also be available on the CRE website.

Events can also be followed on twitter.

Mildura

The experiences of pre-school children from the Pacific Islands and their families, who now live in Australia, will be examined in a study in the Mildura region.

The study is being conducted by the School of Rural Health and Sunraysia Community Health Services and will provide a snapshot of how experiences before starting school can affect a child’s development.

Fiona Tipping, Occupational Therapist at Sunraysia Community Health Services and Monash adjunct, said that there were significant gaps in early childhood development and by the time children started school it was hard to change their developmental pathway.

Mildura Rural City Council has a high proportion of children who are considered developmentally vulnerable. While not all those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds are developmentally vulnerable, it is one of the risk factors.

A recent Mildura Rural City Council investigation found that the number of CALD children accessing funded kindergarten places in the year before starting school was extremely low and there are also low rates of utilisation of paediatric allied health services.

The Mildura region has a diverse population. The Pacific Island migrant community is one of the larger migrant groups in the region, with approximately 2000 Pacific Islanders from Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands, Fiji and the Solomon Islands.

Dr Bernadette Ward from the School of Rural Health said early childhood was a critical time in development where experiences prepare children for transition to full time school, and establish lifelong learning pathways.

“We are interested in hearing from parents about what they feel is important for their family and child’s journey before they start primary school,” Dr Ward said. “This research will assist us to better understand the factors that influence people from rural Pacific Island migrant communities’ decisions in accessing services for their children.

“It will guide local services in the area of health and education and ensure early years services are appropriate and accessible for Pacific Island migrant children in the Mildura region.”

The researchers are calling on parents from Pacific Island migrant communities in the Mildura region, who have a 4-5 year old child due to start school in 2014, to participate in the study.

Those who want to participate in the study have been asked to contact Dr Ward on 03 5444 9064 / 0427 059 205 Bernadette.Ward@monash.edu or Fiona Tipping on +61 3 5022 5444 / 0437 844 503 ftipping@shcs.com.au

Information taken from Research Professional regarding some of the scholarships and funding available for the next four months is listed below. Thanks to Helen Chambers for providing the information.

VFFF RACP research entry scholarship in rural health

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians and the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation enable Australian fellows and trainees of the college to undertake research into rural health issues. Proposed research must include collaboration or partnership with rural organisations, and involve some time spent in outer regional, rural and remote areas.

Applicants must be enrolled in, or about to enrol in a research higher degree and specialise in rural health.

The scholarship is worth $30,000 per year over two years.

• Closing date: 8 July 13
• Award type: Directed grants for individual investigators; Financial aid for postgraduate students; Early-Career fellowships; Predoctoral fellowships
• Award amount max: $60,000
• Consortium requirements: Required
• Australian category: Category 3

Information Society Innovation grants

The Information Society Innovation Fund provides financial support for information society innovation and development projects in the form of small grants. The funding categories for 2012 are:

• innovation on access provision – ICT access is a prevalent issue in the Australia Pacific region, especially for services that require broadband connectivity. Innovative solutions offering low cost deployment, low power consumption and low maintenance that expands fixed and mobile access to the internet through new forms of technical and organisational arrangements as well as improve the quality of access based on issues of accessibility, disability and linguistic diversity;
• innovation on learning and localisation – capacity building and localisation efforts have been key to develop the skills needed to design, maintain and manage ICT infrastructure and services in local languages, supporting local talent and creating job opportunities in rural or urban marginalised areas;
• code for the common good – high mobile penetration in the Australia Pacific region has been a catalyst in the development of mobile-based services, applications and software solutions. These solutions have been used to support timely and relevant information dissemination on a large scale using a range of network infrastructures through a variety of devices, even where literacy rates are lower;

Grants of up to AU$30,000 for a period of six to 12 months are available.

• Closing date: 10 Aug 13 (Forecast)
• Award type: Directed grants to institutions, research groups etc; Equipment and materials; Innovation grants; Publish, edit, translate, disseminate; Technology innovation/development; Hosting conferences
• Award amount max: $30,000
• Consortium requirements: Not Known
• Australian category: Category 3

The 2013 SRH Graduate Research Forum was held at MUDRIH on Tuesday 4 June. The theme of this year’s forum was ‘Beyond the PhD – Where to from here’. HDR (Higher Degree by Research) students from across the school came together for the day and were joined by supervisors and other staff from across the School, both in person and via video and teleconference.

A number of the students gave short presentations on their studies which resulted in good discussion and feedback from the rest of the group. Presentations were made by the Head of MIGR, Dr Charles Tustin, the MPA on HDR hot topics, our Faculty HDR Associate Dean – Sharon Ricardo, Jahna Pulman on Strategic Career Planning and Professor Bob Williamson, who discussed the importance of good mentorship. Presentations will be made available on the School’s intranet shortly – on the soon to be launched HDR page.

The School also held its round of the three minute thesis competition which was judged by Angelo D’Amore, Clare Van Den Dolder and Professor Bob Williamson.  The judging panel declared it a draw with the $200 prize being split evenly between Marita Chisholm and Nicole Kellow.  However, the judging panel decided that Marita will represent our School at the Faculty round of the competition in the next couple of months.

SRH Graduate Students at Research Forum

Associate Professor Fiona Wright from the Mildura Regional Clinical School and Laura Major from the School of Rural Health Rural Education Program office headed to Malaysia in May to assist with implementing the Monash Malaysia Year 2 MBBS Integrated Rural Program (MIRP) pilot study.

The pilot was undertaken in Segamat, a rural town and district which is located about 172 km from Johor Bahru.

Year 2 student volunteers undertook the pilot under the watchful eye of Professor Shah Yasin, his team from Monash Sunway in Kuala Lumpur (KL) and colleagues from the Johor Bahru Clinical School.  Students had the opportunity to undertake daily ward rounds at the 320 bed Segamat Hospital, which serves patients from a large area, some as far as Gemas and Rompin about 45 minutes to an hour away.

Students also enjoyed the opportunity of attending daily clinical placements at district community clinics that deal with a range of health issues, as well as attending regular placements at much smaller village clinics which deal primarily with maternal and child health issues.  In addition, students undertook PBL tutorials as well as clinical skills sessions within a rural context. This was to ensure that they kept up with their central curriculum learning activities.

The regular recording of lectures at Sunway campus in KL allowed the student pilot cohort to download these each day in Segamat and view them during timetabled self-directed learning sessions or in their own time.

Fiona and Laura moderated an evaluation feedback session on the last day of the pilot.

The universal consensus among the students was that they felt the new rural program, focussing on the introduction of clinical skills to Year 2 students in a rural context and experience of rural health service systems rather than a focus on the Sunway curriculum, would enable them to feel better prepared to commence their Year 3 clinical studies.

More importantly the students stated that they felt this model would lessen the “transition shock” that many MBBS students experience as they move from pre-clinical to clinical years training.

The Malaysian Year 2 MIRP pilot student group on the last day of the study.

In collaboration with the Central Gippsland Health Service, Year 3B students at the Sale campus of East Gippsland Regional Clinical School joined transition nurses as part an interdisciplinary education program.

The skills session scenarios focused on detection of and communication with the deteriorating patient, both paediatric and adult.

All participants gave very positive feedback and it is hoped that opportunities for this type of interdisciplinary education continue and expand in the future.

Medical students and transition nurses enjoyed the chance to work in the interdisciplinary program in East Gippsland.

West Gippsland-based students had an opportunity to meet and discuss issues around chronic illness with a person suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (MND), thanks to an event organised by community advisory member Mavis Gallienne.

Mavis has been organising such meetings from some years now and the current cohort at the West Gippsland Campus of the Gippsland Regional Clinical School were fortunate to meet local lady Barbara Phillippi.

Barbara has been living with MND for about eight years but remains a fiercely independent woman who is determined to raise awareness of the illness by telling her story.

An active sportswoman, Barbara told the students how she had first noticed that she was starting to trip and stumble for no apparent reason when playing netball.

As the illness progressed she lost the ability to walk and has little use of her arms, but can drive a motorised wheelchair.

The students heard about the frustrations felt by someone who is now almost totally dependent on family and carers. They also learned a lot about the team available to provide assistance, including Barbara’s GP, a neurologist, physiotherapist, dietician, specialist MND nurses and staff for the Victorian Respiratory Support Service, as well as home care support.

In a recent news item in the local newspaper, the Warragul Gazette, Barbara is quoted as saying: “It is really important for people to understand that minds are not affected by this disease.” This was another key message to the students.

The sessions are important for students as it gives them an insight into the whole range of issues, other than the medical, which impact on people with chronic disease. These include the impact on and role of family, services and support mechanisms, as well as the reaction of other people.

Students have also been encouraged to look at other literature available, including a book out at the moment called ‘Until I Say Goodbye.’ It is by Susan Spencer Wendel, a person living with a form of MND.

West Gippsland students are pictured with Barbara Phillippi and community advisory member Mavis Gallienne, at left.