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Research Activities:

Key research areas include:

Medical education curriculum development and provision, particularly to meet context-specific needs in Aboriginal health, and for rural and remote people and communities;

Developing learning models for dispersed undergraduate and postgraduate medical trainees and health education candidates, and better understanding and adopting Aboriginal approaches to learning about health and well-being

Models for supervision in medical learning, including in general practice clinics, regional hospitals and Aboriginal community-controlled settings;

ICT or new media developments to support program provision to local and remote students and teachers, and infrastructure support to medical services, such as through research in electronic medical records and communications networks for remote communities

Inter-cultural education and orientation programs for improved cultural sensitivity and safety;

Workforce provision for rural and remote communities;

(Other) initiatives in medical and health education, including Academic Registrar placements; vertical and horizontal integration of medical education and e-health.

Current papers:

A balancing act
Simon Morgan
The role of the general practice trainer
The general practice trainer is recognised by The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (the RACGP) as the most important element of Australian general practice training. The college has recently introduced new standards for trainers to ensure high quality general practice training.

Context specific learning opportunities
Simon Morgan, Tamsin Cockayne, Doug Lloyd, Emma Kennedy
Adapting training to discrete areas
Australian general practice training was regionalised in 2002 to better meet the specific health care needs of local communities. As a result, 22 unique regions were established, each containing a variety of training practices and learning contexts. The core learning opportunities in distinct learning contexts have not been well explored.

Research Activities responding to local issues include:

the registrar response to mistakes in practice which they found challenging lead to the development of a reference statement through focus groups, on the appropriate management of mistakes in the training environment.

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the clinical issue of anaemia in children has been the focus of a community participatory prevalence study with ongoing plans to continue consultation on the community’s needs to further improve health status

communication in the Northern Territory cross-cultural setting is integral to education here and has been the source of collaborative workshops and a paper discussing some of the issues

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local evaluation of the remote and rural medical student placement program has been a gradual process involving surveys of pre and post placement experience and 3-5 yr post experience surveys to understand further the student experience.

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Conference abstracts