The WoSSP team with Minister for Health Mr David Davis

The North West Rural Medical Education Unit (MWRMEU) – Dr Natalie Radomski, Pam Harvey, Kylie Cocking and Michelle Moon – were finalists in two categories of the inaugural People in Health Awards 2014, supported by the Victorian Department of Health.

The 12 award categories recognised health services and individuals who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the education, training and development of Victoria’s health workforce. Each award category short-listed 5 or 6 finalists.

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The Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences updated its policy in May on the use of corporate credit cards.

The new policy emphasises that credit cards should only be used for travel and client entertainment expenses. All other purchases are to go through the Procure to Payment services hubs.

The new policy is available on the faculty’s policies page.

A more dynamic teaching environment for SRH students is one expected outcome from Michelle Machado’s recent attendance at the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IAMSE) conference.

Michelle, from SRH Churchill, attended the June conference in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, with the support of the SRH conference fund.

Part of Michelle’s involvement in the conference included presenting a poster on ‘Anatomy learning and retention among medical students in a graduate-entry MBBS course: A cross-sectional study’.

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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.

Volunteers are invited to participate in the Multiple Mini Interviews (MMIs) at School of Rural Health Churchill. The interviews are part of the selection process for the 2015 intake into the graduate entry MBBS (Honours) degree.

The MMI is an extremely important part of theselection process and community involvement is vital in undertaking this process.

This year interviews will be held on Thursday 11 and Friday 12 September at the School of Rural Health Churchill.  We expect to interview about 110 applicants across both days.

There will be two session times each day:

• AM session requires interviewers to attend from 9am
• PM session requires interviewers to attend from 11.30am

SRH Churchill will be conducting training for interviewers in two sessions on Tuesday 26 August: at lunch time and in the evening.

If you would like to participate as an interviewer in 2014, please go to the online form and register your contact details, book in for your training session and select days and times that you are available to interview.

If you are a senior medical student, then you must prioritise your placement obligations above participation in interviews and you are not to miss classes or clinical learning sessions.

Dr Melinda Goodyear took advantage of numerous opportunities to showcase MUDRIH-led research when she attended a recent international conference on families with parental mental health challenges.

As an emerging early career researcher in this field, Melinda contributed in various ways to the ‘Fourth International Conference on Families with Parental Mental Health Challenges: Addressing the Needs of the Whole Family’, held at Berkeley, California during April.

Melinda secured SRH funding to attend the conference, which she described as “the major conference for our research group and the major international conference for the research field addressing supports for families where a parent has a mental illness (the FaPMI/COPMI research fields).”

The conference was attended by most major researchers in this field and Melinda delivered two oral presentations outlining her work, including an invited presentation in a plenary of family recovery. She also chaired a conference session. Read the rest of this entry »

Dedication: (left-right) Dr David Tynon, Dr Rob Carson and Dr Danie DeVilliers, Dr Dennis O’Connor and Professor Geoff Solarsh

Professor Geoff Solarsh and Dr Dennis O’Connor of SRH Bendigo took a road trip to Maryborough in July to meet up with three of the local general practitioners. The three GPs have a long history of teaching  Monash medical students.

Dr David Tynon, Dr Rob Carson and Dr Danie DeVilliers teach Rural Procedureal Medicine to Year 4C students undertaking their rural placements. They do an exceptional job promoting this service and their chosen lifestyle.

Jo spent time with New Zealand medical students during her exchange.

Jo Borgelt, based this year with SRH East & South Gippsland, spent two weeks in New Zealand on exchange.

I have just returned from New Zealand having been lucky enough to be one of two students from the School of Rural Health East & South Gippsland to be given the opportunity to undertake a two-week exchange with the University of Otago. I was based in Masterton, a town on the north island with a population of around 20,000. It is about 1.5 hours’ drive north from Wellington across ‘the hill’, a section of the highway that is regularly closed due to snow in winter. Read the rest of this entry »

Hands-on: a local secondary school students gets up close to a neonatal unit during a Hands-On Health day at Sale.

Forty-five senior secondary school students from Sale, Maffra and Yarram had a taste of working in the health sector when they took part in a Hands on Health day in Sale on 30 July 30.

Based loosely on a similar program at Monash University Clayton campus, the Hands on Health Workshop was put together by Ros Pearce and staff from the SRH East & South Gippsland in collaboration with Central Gippsland Health Service (CGHS) and local secondary schools.

It was held at the School of Rural Health’s  Sale site, under the auspices of the Community Advisory Committee.

Senior students from Sale, Maffra and Yarram secondary colleges, Gippsland Grammar School and Sale Catholic College, interested in pursuing a career in health, attended. Read the rest of this entry »

Developing Health Professional Educators: Connecting Science and Theory with Learning for Clinical Practice was the theme of this year’s annual Australian and New Zealand Association of Health Professional Educators (ANZAHPE) conference.

Three members of staff from the School of Rural Health attended: Senior Lecturer SRH Churchill, Dr Kathy Brotchie; and Dr Cathy Haigh and Bill Haigh from the SRH Latrobe Valley & Warragul.

Dr Brotchie presented a paper on the 2013 Year A cohort students’ responses to a survey on the clinical skills program at SRH Churchill which  used an innovative approach to teaching clinical skills known as “the flipped classroom”. Using this approach, Students are expected to  learn the theory before coming to class (exploring the online resources and readings. Class time is then used to apply the theory.

Provided with personalised feedback from tutors in facilitated hands-on sessions, students reported favourably on their confidence, level of preparation and the usefulness of the feedback provided to them using this pedagogical structure.

The paper, entitled “More than going through the motion: first year medical students’ responses to a Flipped Classroom approach to teaching”, was included in a session exploring innovations in medical education.

Topsy turvy: Year A students endorsed the flipped classroom approach to learning clinical skills.