Department of Rural Health
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DEPARTMENT OF RURAL HEALTH DEPARTMENT OF RURAL HEALTH FACULTY OF MEDICINE, DENTISTRY AND HEALTH SCIENCES ANNUAL REPORT 2015 FUNDED BY THE COMMONWEALTH DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND AGEING UNDER HEALTH WORKFORCE PROGRAMS CONTENTS Mission ......................................................................................................... 2 Report from the Head of the Department of Rural Health .......................... 3 Rural Clinical School ................................................................................... 4 Extended Rural Cohort (ERC) ..................................................................... 5 Student Awards ........................................................................................ 6 Student Presentations .............................................................................. 7 Report from the Director of the University Department of Rural Health (UDRH) ................................................................................ 8 Multidisciplinary Training Program Nursing and Allied Health .......................................................................... 9 Aboriginal Health Workforce .................................................................... 10 Dental Science ....................................................................................... 12 Pharmacy ............................................................................................... 12 Centre for Excellence in Rural Sexual Health (CERSH) ............................ 13 Murray to the Mountains Intern Training Program North East Victoria ... 14 Research and Research Training .............................................................. 15 Aboriginal Health .................................................................................... 15 Medical Education .................................................................................. 15 Mental Health ......................................................................................... 16 Rural Health Academic Network (RHAN) .................................................. 16 Research Training ................................................................................... 16 Research Grants ..................................................................................... 17 Publications ............................................................................................ 17 Community Engagement and Partnerships .............................................. 19 Partnerships ........................................................................................... 20 Seminars and Public Lectures ................................................................ 25 Rural Student Health Clubs ..................................................................... 27 Student Community Engagement ............................................................ 28 Staffing Academic Staff ....................................................................................... 29 Professional Staff ................................................................................... 31 Honorary Staff ........................................................................................ 32 DEPARTMENT OF RURAL HEALTH Department of Rural Health - Annual Report 2015 1 MISSION - STRATEGIC GOALS Mission Excellence and equity in Rural Health through education, research and engagement Strategic Goals • The Department of Rural Health has established a set of indicators of rural health workforce outcomes* for its students, to evaluate its health workforce programs and activities • The Department of Rural Health will increase the duration and quality of supported allied health and nursing placements. Interdisciplinary training is established and is an important element of teaching and learning at the Department of Rural Health • A communication and partnership strategy will be developed, and implemented, to efficiently engage! with our staff, communities and organisational partners • The Department of Rural Health will promote greater excellence in rural medical education through enhanced teacher skill development and accreditation of clinical teachers • An all-inclusive program of cultural safety training and development for the Department of Rural Health staff will be implemented • There will 15 indigenous graduates in health sciences from, or supported by, the Department of Rural Health in 15 years • The Department of Rural Health will support the establishment of a Yorta Yorta research ethics advisory committee • A program of research into rural chronic ill-health will be undertaken • A program of research into culturally inclusive rural health will be undertaken * These will include, to the extent possible, location of practice of former students. And short term assessment of impact of placements on the student intent in regard to rural practice ! Engagement includes sustaining good working relationships, appropriate information transfer and maximising the benefits to all parties of effective collaboration 2 Department of Rural Health - Annual Report 2015 REPORT FROM THE HEAD OF DEPARTMENT DEPARTMENT OF RURAL HEALTH 2015 was the final year of our last Federal Government funding A second achievement in 2015 was the growth of all three of our cycle and for the first time since the Rural Clinical School (RCS) research themes. In the areas of chronic rural ill health, culturally and University Department of Rural Health (UDRH) programs were inclusive rural health care and rural health workforce, we had many established, significant changes to our contracts and Key Performance conference presentations and published papers. It was exciting when Indicators were proposed by the Government. I have to say that the Professor David Simmons, who was the first Director of the UDRH, proposals put forward were all sensible and we were able to enter into suggested revisiting the Crossroads Undiagnosed Disease Study a very constructive dialogue with the Department of Health about the approximately a decade after this study was first conducted. Professor proposed changes to our programs as a whole, as well as detailed Lisa Bourke and Dr Kristen Glenister worked with David and many negotiations about our department’s funding and outcome measures. others in our department to develop a grant proposal, and were awarded a NHMRC Partnership grant of over $1,000,000 to carry out The RCS and UDRH programs have been combined into one Rural the study in partnership with many of our local health services and Health Multidisciplinary Training program. For some universities, health providers. this will be the first time their RCS and UDRH teams will be working together. For our department, which has always had RCS and UDRH We have also had a successful year in promotions for our academics, programs working with joint administration and facilities, this will Dr Christina Malatzky and Dr Daniel Terry were promoted to Research not lead to any major changes in the way we work. Based largely Fellow, Rev Dr Helen Malcolm was promoted to Associate Professor on the success of Professor Lisa Bourke and her team in increasing and Lisa Bourke was promoted to Professor, these are fantastic the number of our nursing and allied health placements during 2015, achievements. Particularly for Helen and Lisa this represents fitting we have also been able to secure a significant amount of additional recognition for many years of sustained success in their work and funding to further increase our support to nursing and allied health commitment to the university. students in our regions. This is a major focus of our new contract and I look forward to 2016 as a time of further growth and challenges. we have set an extremely ambitious target for our support of a total number of nursing and allied health students by 2018. Professor Julian Wright Head of Department, Department of Rural Health Rural Clinical School graduating class of 2015 Department of Rural Health - Annual Report 2015 3 RURAL CLINICAL SCHOOL (RCS) Our Rural Clinical School (RCS) students continue to perform very well The relationship between the Murray to Mountain (M2M) PGY1 academically compared to their metropolitan clinical school peers. program and the RCS was strengthened by the Dean of the RCS undertaking the role of Director of Clinical Training for M2M. This 2015 in some ways has been a challenging one for the RCS, with provides a strong base to enhance rural postgraduate training a major restructure of the professional staff workforce of the pathways for our students. University and a restructure of the Melbourne Medical School. Fortunately, 2015 has been a year of consolidation of the changes The University of Melbourne Shepparton Medical Centre continues following these restructures. After some uncertainty the internal RCS to provide a valued teaching resource for the RCS, while providing academic management structure is now in place, improving teaching much needed high quality care to the community. In 2015 the medical staff management and development. The initiation of a teacher centre delivered circa approximately 700 teaching sessions for accreditation program has stimulated many teachers to consider medical students, of three hours or more. This was achieved, despite their continuing professional development. A number of innovations the Medical Centre being limited to an average of 2.3FTE of senior designed to provide quality education in a setting with limited access clinicians. to clinical teachers,