The availability of the hi-fidelity simulation models for clinical skills scenarios, including the newcomer Sim Newbie as well as SimMan, has taken off in Mildura.

Howard Cook and Kristy Allen have facilitated a number of training sessions for nursing staff from both Mildura Base Hospital and Mildura Private Hospital.

Sim Newbie has a weekly date with local midwifery staff while Howard and Kristy also transported SimMan to a training day ‘Immunisation Updates for Practice Nurses’, working on scenarios involving Anaphylaxis.

Regular bookings are being established for Sea Lake, Manangatang, Ouyen and Robinvale health professionals, particularly following the end of academic semesters.

Warragul students have again performed well in the annual John Desmond Prize in Occupational Medicine, open to all Year 3B MBBS students across Monash.

All nine Warragul students took part and passed with marks ranging from credit to high distinction. The two who achieved high distinctions were Margaret Young and Liying Chen.

The efforts of the group were mentioned in the final report, which stated: “Superior performance in this examination was achieved by the candidates from Warragul and Cabrini followed by The Alfred and Box Hill, followed by Southern Health at Monash Medical Centre, Dandenong and Casey.”

The two students who achieved high distinctions in the John Desmond Prize, Mararet You (left) and Liying Chen

The John Desmond Prize is donated by Drs Robyn Horsley and Peter Desmond, who asked that the Prize be named in honour of their late son, John Desmond, who died in infancy.  Robyn practises occupational medicine as a specialty and finds it to be a family-friendly and diverse area of medicine.

The objectives of the John Desmond Prize in Occupational Medicine are to encourage students to contemplate occupational medicine as a career and, secondly, to encourage students to acquire the knowledge, skills and attitude needed to effectively practise occupational medicine as part of any general or specialist medical practice.

Warragul students have also celebrated their year together with a ‘last day’ morning tea, when the John Desmond Prize certificates were handed out.

The reputation of Bendigo Regional Clinical School’s Trauma Day has been upheld with yet another successful event.

More than 30 enthusiastic Year 3 and Year 5 medical students arrived ready to be put through their paces, with Simulated Learning Environment Clinical Educators Adele Callaghan and Cathy Driver ready to guide them through the day.

Dr Diana Badcock kicked the day off with a relevant and practical revision of primary and secondary survey. By the end of her session, the students were dreaming about Airway, (with cervical stabilization!), breathing, and circulation.

Diana’s innovative presentation design ensured that each and every participant was able to contribute to and share intellectual material. Read the rest of this entry »

The concrete slab went in at the start of October

The last of the major building works to complete the makeover of Gippsland Regional Clinical School facilities at Traralgon are well underway.

The breakout area adjacent to the Roger Strasser Auditorium is being extended substantially, so that it can used as extra space when running conferences and sessions. As well as being suitable for break-out purposes, it has been designed for multi-use such as an area to run education sessions and have displays.

Once the new area is completed early in the New Year, work will start on refurbishing and upgrading the existing auditorium. It is scheduled for completion around May 2013.

The work will finalise what has been a major redevelopment program for the School of Rural Health, the Monash nursing program and for Latrobe Regional Hospital.

By the end of October, the extension was taking shape

Construction of new accommodation off-site but adjacent to the hospital grounds early in 2012 enabled the upstairs area to be redone as office space and a new library established. The new break out area followed on and with refurbishment of the Auditorium the program will be complete – at least for now!

Pictured with the new books is Baringa staff member, Laura Hollands (centre), along with students from left, Peter, Coleen, Brianna and Alex

The Gippsland Regional Clinical School has said thanks to Baringa Special School for its assistance throughout the year, with the donation of a series of books designed for those with learning disadvantages.

Each of the nine students from the Warragul Campus of the School of Rural Health spent a day at the Baringa School in Moe, learning about communications and working with people with a disability.

The Baringa students and staff were delighted to help out the medical students and the books were a small gift – which the special school nominated as something it wanted – to say thanks.

Pictured with her prize for taking part is Kellie Lamarino (centre) with Mark Heald and Samantha Hoyle from St Joseph's College Mildura

Mildura Regional Clinical School has put Monash’s Qualtrics software licence to good use, developing a survey for upper secondary school students to get their thoughts on entering medicine, and also to give them information about issues including enter scores.

As an incentive to participate in the survey, a $30 iTunes voucher was offered. The eventual winner was Kellie Lamarino, a Year 10 student from St Josephs College in Mildura.

Kellie and 33 other students from St Josephs College and Ouyen Secondary completed the quick survey relating to Medicine at Monash University.  Kellie received her iTunes card and some Monash merchandise after she was randomly selected from the survey participants who volunteered their name and school in their responses.

The Mildura Regional Clinical School is grateful for the participation of the local students, and also recommends the use of a survey such as this one to spread messages to potential undergraduate students.

A group photo of those who attended the 20th Anniversary Dinner

What better way to celebrate the best of being rural than to taste the best of local food and wine while looking out across green Gippsland pastures to the hills!

Thirty-one willing School of Rural Health staff and some partners joined MUDRIH’s commemorative dinner at the Traralgon Winery mid-October.

From the warm welcome with wonderful wine, great canapés and conversation, the evening moved on to guest speaker, Professor Elaine Duffy.

There could be no better person to pull together the threads of MUDRIH history, as Elaine was a foundation member of the School of Rural Health along with Professor Roger Strasser.

She described the early days of working in a ‘broom cupboard’ in the old Moe Hospital but, despite the low resources, she emphasised that the School of Rural Health was established on a foundation of enthusiasm and determination. Read the rest of this entry »

As Rendez-Vous 2012 draws to a close I wanted to take this opportunity to thank the School of Rural Health for affording me the opportunity to attend this conference of global proportions.

I have had the best time meeting and forming new alliances with fellow rural clinical school staff from so many different parts of the world (including Australia) who all share one thing in common – wanting to make a difference in the delivery of health care in our most vulnerable communities. I know that my Monash colleagues are also coming back home feeling inspired and re-invigorated…..post jet-lag.

My time in Thunder Bay will not soon be forgotten. Thanks again SRH for enabling me to form new professional relationships with a focus on socially accountable health professional education and delivery of health care.

Au revoir Thunder Bay…….

Laura 🙂

The plenary afternoon session was given by Dr Ian Couper, Professor of Rural Health in South Africa. It was a moving session describing Dr John Mcleod’s commitments to rural general practice. The speaker went on to talk about Dr John’s Mcleod achievements and passion to make a differene to rural communities as a good model for all doctors and health professionals working in rural areas. Dr Couper also talked about the need for us to become outliers, outlaws and outsiders in our way of thinking and practice in order to make a difference to our rural communities.
Hanan

I’m currently attending an early morning plenary session listening to medical students from medical schools around the globe describing some of their community engagement experiences which have inspired them and in some ways changed them as individuals.

An inspiring presentation by a 3rd year medical student from South Africa who has initiated an HIV education program for local schools in the hope that this will improve the perception about this illness which either affects or infects almost everybody in South Africa.

An illuminating presentation from a medical student from the Phillipines who undertook a community engagement project to improve the maternal mortality rate in a small rural community. They built a halfway house out of PET bottles so that mothers could deliver their babies in a safer environment.

At the end of these student presentations, there wasn’t a dry eye in the room and all students received a standing ovation. So very well deserved.

Laura Major