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School of Population Health and Clinical Practice
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Newsletter May - June 2008Welcome to the School of Population Health and Clinical Practice NEWS. Contents
Upcoming EventsPlease mark in your diary the following events we encourage you attend: The next School Seminar in the series is on Wednesday 16th July at 10.30am in the Robson Lecture Theatre (Level 1, Eleanor Harrald Building, Frome Road), and will be presented by Spencer Gulf Rural School and Yaitya Purruna. After morning tea at 10.30am, proceedings will commence at 11.00am and end by 12.00pm The Faculty of Health Sciences will be holding the 2008 Postgraduate Research Expo on 22nd July 2008 from 9am - 5pm at the National Wine Centre. Prizes will be awarded to the best posters, and the best platform presentation. There are seven poster prizes to be awarded for $500 each and one oral presentation prize for $1,000. A program of events will be distributed shortly by the Faculty Research Office. At last count there were 8 SPHCP students involved. The University Open Day is coming up on Sunday 17th August. A School Open Day Committee, chaired by Leanne Bragg, met in June to plan our participation. More information to follow… As you may be aware, the University will be audited this year by the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA). The AUQA Audit Panel will visit the University from Tuesday 9th September – Friday 12th September. During their visit they will meet with a broad cross section of staff and students of the University. The Audit panel will also wish to meet more generally with groups of academic and professional staff and I would be grateful if you could please make every effort to be available during this time. Message from the Head of SchoolDear Colleagues My absence between 15th April and 21st May 2008 was devoted mostly to annual leave but did include a number of academic occasions, as described below: Friday, 18th April: Half-day meeting with Professor Richard Ashcroft, Medical Ethics, Queen Mary’s College, University of London. The chief topic of discussion was potential future directions for tobacco control, and especially the issues surrounding ‘safer smoking’ and ‘clean nicotine’. Tuesday, 29th April: Presented a seminar at St George’s Hospital Medical School ‘The Perth Community Stroke Study comes of age’. In subsequent discussion with Professor Sean Hilton, Acting Dean, I learned that the Research Assessment Exercise had resulted in most funding for research in academic general practice being directed to five specified centres of excellence, in Bristol, Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford and Cambridge. The challenges facing the academic departments of general practice in London had therefore been compounded. Wednesday, 30th April: Half-day meeting with Dr Alison, McGregor, Orthopaedic Surgery, Imperial College. We discussed a number of issues relating to our on-going FASTER Trial, which is evaluating the role of physiotherapy in recovery after spinal surgery. Short-lived initiatives within the NHS designed to reduce waiting lists for elective surgery had complicated and slowed recruitment to the trial. Friday, 9th May: Meeting with Emma Livesley, Senior Clinical Manager, Huddersfield and Halifax Hospitals. Control of an outbreak of noravirus diarrhoea in one of her newer hospitals had been complicated by its design as an annular series of modules, such that it proved impossible to close affected wards to staff and visitors moving between other parts of the hospital. This would have been obviated by a hub-and-spoke design, and has implications for the design of the Marjorie Jackson Nelson Hospital. Saturday, 10th May: Meeting with Hazel Woodcock, Senior Midwife, Rotherham Hospital. The hospital faced special challenges in serving a disadvantaged population in which use of illicit drugs was widespread and in providing clinical services and interpreters to the large influx of patients of Eastern European origin that had followed expansion of the European Union. Monday, 12th May: Presented a seminar at the Social Policy Research Unit, University of York. ‘Beyond Nuremberg - Time to abandon 20th century approaches to the regulation of research on humans’ Wednesday, 14th May: Presented a seminar at the Department of Public Health, University of Edinburgh. ‘What can we achieve through regular, comprehensive reviews of the care of patients with cancer?’ Monday, 19th May: Festschrift for Professor Charles Warlow, originator of the Oxfordshire Community Stroke Project. The day-long program included 11 academic presentations on research, research ethics and clinical training related to Professor Warlow’s career. I am very grateful to Janet Hiller for serving as Acting Head in my absence. Konrad Jamrozik School SeminarsPublic Health and Centre for Military and Veterans' Health delivered fascinating introductions of themselves and their activities in the second of our ‘know your neighbours’ seminars in April. In June the third of our ‘know your neighbours’ seminars featured General Practice and the Faculty. Professional development reviewsOver the last few weeks the School Office has been spending considerable time on preparatory work and initiation of an annual cycle of Professional Development Reviews. Please take this opportunity to discuss with your supervisor: • Your needs for additional training Please refer to the attached link for more information: http://www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/orgdev/pdr/ Changes in the School OfficeAs you may be aware, there have been some new additions to staff in the School Office over the last few weeks. To assist you with your queries, please refer to the ‘Who to contact in School Office’ (pdf 42kB) attachment which gives an overview of the tasks undertaken by each staff member. School BrochureWe now have available a simple promotional brochure for the School, a supply of which should accompany every member of staff on any official trip interstate or overseas, please. All such trips represent a promotional opportunity for the School when staff meet other colleagues or potential postgraduate and HDR students at conferences and seminars. We are all travelling ambassadors for the University. Thus two essentials that should go into every travel bag, along with your slides and laptop, should be a current business card and some of the new School brochures, which are available from the School Office. With many of our courses on-line, and with the internationalisation pursuits of the School and Faculty in mind, we are seeking opportunities to recruit HDRs and for collaborative research, not only for your own area, but for the School in general. You never know where the next opportunity will come from! Grants AwardedCongratulations to the following people who have been successful with their Grant applications: • John Karnon for both an ARC Linkage Project – on evaluating community-based initiatives and a SA Department of Health Strategic Health Research Program grant. Awards & Fellowships ReceivedCongratulations also go to the below people who have received: • Janet Hiller who received the Basil Hetzel Award for Leadership in Public Health from the South Australian Branch of the Public Health Association of Australia. PhDs AwardedCongratulations as well to the following candidates who have successfully completed their PhDs: • Antonina Mikocka – Walus - Psychological factors and response to medical treatment: Do psychological factors determine the outcome in patients with inflammatory bowel disease and other common gastrointestinal and hepatologic disorders? Media ReportsThe University’s media unit has highlighted John Field, a University of Adelaide PhD student in Nursing graduating in Singapore, for his study on ‘Caring to death as discursive analysis of nurses who murder patients’. Visitors to the UniversityWe were honoured to have hosted a delegation from the "Praboromarajachanok Institute of Health Work Force Development" in Thailand in June. There was extremely positive feedback received regarding the visit and the presentations from Konrad Jamrozik, John Moss, Janet Hiller and Christian Gericke. We would also like to acknowledge all the people who assisted with the event and to the smooth running day. Below are a couple of photos from the day.
International Links, Interests & Overseas Trip Reports• From 28-31 May 2008, Associate Professor Alan Crockett, Chris Holton and Dr Kerry Hancock attended the 4th International Primary Care Respiratory Group in Seville, Spain. This conference is held every 2 years, and this year attracted 900 delegates (GPs, nurses, physiotherapists, researchers, etc.) from 42 countries. It featured international speakers on topics such as asthma, COPD, smoking, tuberculosis, rhinitis and respiratory infectious pandemics, with a focus on new developments in prevention and management within the primary care sector. Alan conducted a workshop, in conjunction with Tjard Schermer of the Netherlands, entitled “Train the Trainer: Spirometry”. The stimulating discussion and sharing of experiences in this workshop will result in development of a position paper for the IPCRG on what should be involved in spirometry training, and how it should be done. Chris presented a paper entitled “Is it cost-effective to take a more systematic approach to managing asthma in Australian general practice?”, based on work done in a recent collaborative NHMRC project that had Prof Justin Beilby as its chief investigator. She also had a poster relating to another just-completed NHMRC project “Training GPs and practice nurses in how to perform and interpret spirometry properly in primary care in Australia: is it feasible and beneficial to asthma patients?” There were many opportunities for networking and consolidating relationships especially with our MOU partners from Aberdeen and the Netherlands. We believe this will lead to expanded funding opportunities and a number of exciting new collaborations. • Jill Benson is attending the joint conference of the World Psychiatric Association (WPA) and World Organisation of General Practitioners (WONCA) in Granada in June and is presenting a paper called ‘Is resilience a cultural phenomenon?’ and chairing a session called ‘Improvement of Mental Health delivery by Collaboration’. We wish her all the best. Arrivals & DeparturesPlease welcome to the School: Michelle Calver, School Office New ProgramFrom Semester 1, 2009, the University will offer a new Master’s program in Health Economics and Policy. Development of the proposal was led for our School by Professor Christina Gericke. HDR Student MeetingOn Friday 20th June 2008 the School of Population Health and Clinical Practice held its first Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Student Meeting. Professor Konrad Jamrozik introduced himself to the approximately 20 students present and talked about his vision for PhD training in the School. Prof Jamrozik's talk was followed by a presentation on 'How to prepare a poster' given by Tracy Merlin, the Manager of Adelaide Health Technology Assessment and PhD student in Public Health. The afternoon concluded with drinks and nibbles where everyone was able to meet, chat and greet other students and staff from the School Office. The next HDR Student Meeting is scheduled for August 29 at 2pm. More details will follow...
Implementing Curriculum ChangeIs your course, program or module due for revision or in need of an update? Curriculum mapping is a procedure for collecting and maintaining a data base of the operational curriculum within a school and / or district (Hayes-Jacobs 2008). Essentially mapping the elements of a curriculum encourages smoother and more transparent linkage between learning outcomes and assessments. While the concept has been established for some time, advances in method and software have seen mapping gain popularity across the primary and secondary sector with some uptake of the process at the tertiary level. Curtin University of Technology are using a curriculum mapping process as an element of their Curriculum 2010 plan (http://c2010.curtin.edu.au). Curriculum mapping is also a method for identifying professional development plans within departments. I recently attended a conference on curriculum mapping and have a number of resources and information that I am happy to share regarding the process. Feel free to email me at frank.donnelly@adelaide.edu.au for further details. At the very least curriculum mapping encourages reflection on the direction, outcome and teaching strategies you might have in place for your program. Frank Donnelly CongratulationsWe are also pleased to announce that Felicia Matthews from the School Office gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Ruby Kate, weighing 3.4kgs, on 7th May.
Vacant PositionsThe NEWS is published online to keep all School staff with up to date with School news. Please email any items of news to tarryn.muller@adelaide.edu.au. |
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© 2008 The University of Adelaide Last Modified 27/08/2008 Andre Duszynski CRICOS Provider Number 00123M |
