DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL PRACTICE
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
Dr Meredith Temple Smith
Research Training Coordinator
Primary Care Research Unit
P : 03 8344 3371
E : m.temple-smith@unimelb.edu.au
University of Melbourne Awards Night
Research conducted in primary care is dependent on the willingness and cooperation of the practices which participate in
the research. Similarly universities are dependent on the enthusiasm of GPs who take medical students on placement to
motivate them to consider general practice as a profession. The Department of General Practice at the University of Melbourne
recently recognised these contributions at the Inaugural Research and Teaching Awards night. On 16 February, at a dinner
held at University House, Ararat Medical Centre and Dr Alistair Stark received an award for the best teaching practice, and the
best clinical teacher respectively. The role of inspiring medical students to become the new generation of GPs is dependent on
such practices and practitioners.
A number of practices received awards for their outstanding contribution to research:
- Deakin Medical Centre
- Clifton Hill Medical Group
- The Clinic Footscray
- East Brunswick Medical Centre
- Brooke Street Medical Centre
- Margaret Street Clinic Moonee Ponds.
During the acceptance speeches, recipients reflected on how they valued the research in which they are currently
participating, and how it has broadened their knowledge. Staff of the Department were also pleased to hear that recipients
viewed their involvement in studies as made easier by the way in which the research activity fitted into their everyday
practice. Many of the practices are part of VicRen, the University of Melbourne 's practice-based research network, and are
keen to continue their collaboration with research.
SCHOOL OF RURAL HEALTH
UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE
Dr Elaine Tan
Lecturer in Pharmacy, PHCRED Coordinator
P: 03 5823 4538
E: elainet@unimelb.edu.au
In 2009, four RDP fellows commenced their PHCRED projects at the School of Rural Health, The University of Melbourne in Shepparton. Following are their profiles:
Mez Hoy graduated from the Victorian College of Pharmacy in 1988. Her practice has covered industry, hospital and community pharmacy in Australia and the United Kingdom . Mez's interests in the development of pharmacy professional services and the management of sexually transmissible infections (STIs) has led to her PHCRED project, which investigates pharmacists' awareness and knowledge of STIs, comparing urban and rural practice.
Heather Seiter has more than 20 years nursing experience, and has a passion for rural community based care. She has completed several post graduate qualifications, including a Bachelor of Health Sciences and a Post Graduate Certificate in Advanced Gerontological Nursing. Heather is currently employed as Registered Nurse Division 1 Case Manager with Goulburn Valley Health Community Interlink. Her work role includes the implementation and management of Extended Aged Care at Home Dementia (EACH-D) specific program. Heather's PHCRED project explores the impact and characteristics of carers caring for a person with advanced dementia at home in the rural setting.
Wendy Walker graduated with a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Melbourne in 2001. Since graduating, she has worked in the area of health with a particular interest in mental health and gerontology. Wendy is currently employed by the Aged Psychiatry Service, Northeast Health Wangaratta. She delivers the healthy and wise program to groups of older adults residing in communities within the Hume region. Wendy's PHCRED project investigates the effectiveness of the healthy and wise program in increasing mental health literacy in older adults.
Carol Reid has a background in nursing, particularly in the aged care setting. This led to an interest in community based health supports and studies in community service and social welfare. Carol is currently completing her Bachelor of Social Work at Deakin University . She works for Familycare based at the Shepparton offices, as a Carer Support Coordinator. Her PHCRED project explores carer's experiences of their changed caring role when the person they care for goes into other care arrangements.
DEPARTMENT OF GENERAL PRACTICE
 MONASH UNIVERSITY
Anna Chapman
VicPHCRED State Coordinator
P: 03 8575 2246
E: anna.chapman@med.monash.edu.au
The 2009 Victorian PHCRED fellows recently met in Melbourne for an orientation to the PHCRED program. Fellows from Monash University Department of General Practice (DGP) and Department of Rural & Indigenous Health (MUDRIH), and The University of Melbourne DGP were involved. The day proved to be a great networking and research capacity building experience for everyone involved.
2009 PHCRED Fellows present at the orientation day include:
Monash University DGP
Brian Steer – Evidence and practice Guidelines for treatment and management of ischemic stroke and thrombolytic therapy
Dr I-Hao Cheng - New arrival refugee perspectives of General Practice in City of Greater Dandenong
Jan Taylor – Systematic Review to investigate the effects of exercise for older people in Residential Aged care Facilities
Nicole Hale – De-indentified analyses of patient data collected during usual clinical care and assessment of older people participating in the ‘Agestrong' program in both community settings and Residential Aged Care Facilities
Dr Karyn Alexander – Uptake of The Healthy Kids Check in General Practice and knowledge of and uptake of GPs to the Practice Guidelines.
The University of Melbourne DGP
Jessica Malcolm - Chronic disease management and social inequalities
Dr Adeline Ooi - Young women's understandings of the Pap smear test
Maureen Goss - What needs to be in place for general practices to participate in research
Shelley Walker – ‘Sexting' and the health and well-being of young people
Carole Meade - Depression in diabetes and cardiac disease
Dr Jason Ong - Young women and contraception.
MUDRIH
Dr Angela Todd - Increase collaboration between Maternal Health Nurses and Chiropractors to improve patient outcomes for infants with infantile colic/irritability
Dr Belinda Hall - Chiropractic Treatment of Infantile Colic: The effects of low force spinal manipulative therapy alone on infant crying
Cheryl Bush - Impact of a nurse led diabetes clinic within a GP practice through an analysis of models of care, clinical and patient outcomes.
Kerry Parker - Low Intensity Laser Therapy as an adjunctive therapy in chronic wound healing.
DISCIPLINE OF GENERAL PRACTICE
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY
Dr Raechelle Rubinstein
PHCRED Coordinator
P: 02 9556 7200
E: raechelle@gp.med.usyd.edu.au
We are pleased to announce the award of Researcher Development Program (RDP) Fellowships to three early career researchers who joined us in February.
Rebecca Hensley, a Scientific Officer at the Children's Hospital Westmead with a background in nursing and sleep disorders, hopes to pursue research relating to paediatric sleep medicine.
Debra Clark is a Practice Support Officer at General Practice Network Northside (formerly Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Ryde Division of General Practice). She plans to evaluate the effectiveness of diabetic patient hand held records within the Electronic Quality Improvement Program (E-QIP).
Christopher Daniel has been employed in a number of Divisions of General Practice, and he is currently Project Officer – Chronic Disease Management & Preventive Health at Central Sydney General Practice Network (formerly Central Sydney Division of General Practice). He would like to undertake research in the areas of chronic disease management and preventive health in general practice.
We have already commenced our program of research training workshops for the year. On 19 February, twenty people attended a workshop on Reading and Analyzing Academic Literature, and 23 people attended a Writing for Publication workshop on 26 February. Both workshops were extremely popular, and we were unable to accommodate everyone who wanted to register.
The Youth Health Research Interest Group (YHRIG), a national network of primary health care practitioners, policy makers and researchers with an interest in youth health research in Australia , is supported by our PHCRED Program. The Group plans to host a youth health Breakfast Session at this year's General Practice and Primary Health Care Research Conference in Melbourne. To join YHRIG or for information about the Group contact
Dr Carol Kefford
E: ckefford@med.usyd.edu.au
or Dr Melissa Kang
E: mkang@med.usyd.edu.au
GENERAL PRACTICE
UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Professor Jon Emery
Head of School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care
P: 08 9449 5140
E: jon.emery@uwa.edu.au
A Primary Care Cooperative Cancer Clinical Trials Group (PC4) has recently been established, chaired by Prof Jon Emery. The trials group is one of the new National Cooperative Oncology Groups funded by Cancer Australia.
We aim to improve cancer outcomes in Australia by fostering collaboration between researchers, to build capacity and enable the development of a series of pre-trial studies that will lead to large-scale, multi-site studies.
To do so, we invite you to register with PC4 (contact us for an Expression of Interest form). Benefits for our members include:
- assistance with concept or protocol development
- biostatistical advice on trial design and analysis
- advice on the design of health economic and/ or pharmaco-economic studies incorporated in cancer clinical trials
- a peer review process for publications
- links to the wider research community
- access to research training workshops and events
- assistance with registering cancer clinical trials on the Australian Clinical Registry.
Current research activities, instigated by Executive Committee members, cover a broad spectrum of the cancer journey,
with the uniting focus being primary health care:
- web-based decision tools for cervical cancer, and for prioritising preventative health activities (My Health Check)
- a phase II study of non-endoscopic screening tool for Barrett’s oesophagus in Australia
- a novel imaging device ( Molemate ) for assessment of pigmented skin lesions
- a national survey of medicine use, to be analysed for adverse reactions and interactions between complementary medicines and pharmaceuticals
- aggregating multiple single patient trials to gain a population estimate of the efficacy of methylphenidate in the management of fatigue in patients with advanced cancer
- screening tools for the early detection of lymphoedema
- a GP-based intervention to support carers and reduce hospital admissions of patients with advanced cancer due to fatigue
- a decision-making tool for rural patients to redress delay and improve outcomes.
For further information about PC4, or to register as a member, please contact Julia Fallon-Ferguson, National Manager:
P: 08 9449 5164
E: julia.fallon-ferguson@uwa.edu.au
DISCIPLINE OF GENERAL PRACTICE
 UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND
Dr Deborah Askew
Senior Research Fellow
P: 07 3365 5449
E: d.askew@uq.edu.au
A key element of the 2009 PHCRED RCBI activities of the Discipline of General Practice at The University of Queensland is support and mentoring of novice researchers. We have awarded five research fellowships for 2009. Their projects are summarised below:
Anne Bucetti's research aims to identify difficulties encountered by GPs caring for palliative patients in rural and remote Queensland. Of particular concern are the increasing number of overseas trained doctors who are compelled to work in these areas and who may be facing difficulties with a lack of knowledge of the local health system as well as language and cultural barriers.
Dr Johanna Lynch is conducting research reviewing the literature to define robust psychological concepts from the grief and loss, trauma, and attachment literature that could be included in primary mental health assessment.
Dr Fiona McGrath is looking at the way GPs manage female urinary incontinence and to what extent they are referring patients for Pelvic Floor Therapy (supervised by a women's health trained physiotherapist) before referring for possible surgical intervention.
Dr Helena Rosengren's research aims to find out if torso wound taping post-operatively reduces stretch across the width of the scar and improves patient satisfaction with their wound. She is conducting a randomised controlled trial involving patients who are having excisions primarily of skin cancers on the trunk.
Dr Marthe Smith is researching the feasibility of delivering a smoking cessation intervention, using simulated ageing software, in general practice in Australia . Software will be used to enable doctors to age a personal patient photograph so the patient can compare what they will look like at aged 50 if they continue to smoke or if they stop smoking right away.
NORTHERN RIVERS UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF RURAL HEALTH
UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY AND SOUTHERN CROSS UNIVERSITY
 Expanding our capacity in Indigenous health research
At the Northern Rivers UDRH our Indigenous health research capacity building program has always been a priority area. We are now developing even greater strength in this component through the recent recruitment of Associate Professor Janelle Stirling.
Janelle started her professional life in the in NSW Education system, where she worked as a Health and PE teacher, a head teacher, and was also seconded as a senior education officer to work in drug education. It was during her period working on ‘Healing Time' – a special Indigenous drug education program that she became inspired to follow a career in health. She enrolled in the Masters in PHC at the University of Western Sydney and after completing her Masters, was appointed as the Coordinator of the Indigenous health research program at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research (QMIR). During her five years with QIMR, she became actively involved in a number of programs with the Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health (CRCAH) and was asked to join the CRCAH Board. Since leaving the QIMR she has remained actively involved with the CRCAH and continues as an independent board member. After a period as the CEO of an Aboriginal Medical Service, Janelle joined us in November 2008.
Janelle is responsible for providing leadership to the Aboriginal stream of our PHCRED program as well as contributing to the overall PHCRED program and other activities of the NRUDRH. Janelle will work closely with Dr Shawn Wilson, an Indigenous Canadian (First Nations), who has been holding the fort with our Indigenous program for the past two years. Shawn and Janelle will be providing mentorship and support to our Indigenous RDP clinicians, as well as running our Walking Through Research program. This is a short course on research methods specifically targeting Aboriginal clinicians. We originally ran this course in 2007, and have extensively revised it in 2008, with incorporation of materials developed by the Aboriginal Health Council of South Australia. We plan to run the revised course in the latter half of 2009.
|
