Rural Dermatology Online

The project aims to enable rural dermatologists to access professional development activities using electronic technologies. In order to meet the different learning needs and learning styles of this group, and to ensure a mix of real-time interaction with peers and  activities which can be accessed at anytime, a range of activities will be offered. A website will be developed to provide an access point for the activities. Activities will include:

In addition, it is proposed that a number of teleconferences of the Rural Services Committee of the College be held to ensure that recommendations arising from the College’s Round 6 SSRS project are implemented and for further strategic planning.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Bob Cordoroy

Rural Radiology Online

Rural radiologists are required to register to access the online CPD modules. If you would like to register, please email Pamela Taylor at rural@ranzcr.edu.au

This project will develop and present interactive refresher or up-skilling programs online for radiologists including overseas trained radiologists within rural centres.

The programs chosen will focus on topics that rural radiologists consider significant to update their knowledge or skills set, which is particularly important in radiology with rapid advances in technology. Topics could include review of CT, Musculoskeletal Ultrasound, Obstetrics, Paediatrics, emergency resuscitation, report writing, etc.

The online program will be self-directed with group interaction, developed by trained educationalists, with expertise and content developed by radiologists. Programs are flexible and designed for busy people and will be incorporated into the College’s own online education module, eLearning@RANZCR.

Participants will be required to review and complete educational modules, review case reports and complete online assessments. The programs are also assisted by a ‘facilitators’ who would be able to respond to questions and offer guidance.

The program will be supported by a number of ‘champion’ rural radiologists who have been identified and are willing to assist with the programs. These programs will be unique in Australia for Radiology.

The Government has also recently announced that high speed broadband will be built in rural settings and will make these programs more attractive to participants.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Pamela Taylor

Increasing resilience through productive reflection

Critical reflection encourages us to reflect on how we subjectively position ourselves within certain contexts and social interactions. The context in this project will be the rural and remote clinical management setting.

Clinicians, clinician managers and DMS working in rural areas of Australia will be invited to participate in   reflective practice workshops. These will be designed to develop personal and collaborative reflective practice skills while sharing the management decision making practices they have found to work/ to be effective. 

The program will involve teaching and learning about critical reflection processes. Reflective space is known to develop self awareness and improve creativity, leading to improved decision making and service delivery. The program will be developed in consultation with the health services to make it ‘safe’.

The workshops are designed to be delivered as a set: 1 half day introduction to reflective practice, followed by one half day to identify critical events and typical rural contextual practices;  followed by deconstruction and reconstruction techniques on day two. To complete the set there is a video conference.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Karen Owen

Specialists as Teachers

The project aims to improve the orientation process for trainees as well as teaching and assessment skills of rural specialists.  A  series of one day, face-to-face courses will be designed to provide the foundation for improved educational and management skills, which can then be developed further by practical application.  Courses will be offered in five rural and remote locations such as Darwin, Rockhampton, Cairns, Bunbury, Wagga Wagga and Shepparton. The course is expected to benefit at least 50 specialists directly and indirectly the next generations of trainees and all of their future patients. 

Target audience:

For more information, contact Merrilyn Smith

Neurotrauma Workshops

The Neurotrauma Workshops Project aims to give rural surgeons access to training in burr-hole surgery for neurotrauma emergencies.  A series of 4 x one day, hands-on workshops will provide surgeons with the foundation for improved head injury management skills.  It is expected that at least 72 surgeons will benefit directly from participation in this Project with a flow on benefit to the next generations of rural General Surgery trainees and all of their future patients.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Merrilyn Smith

Perinatal Mortality and Morbidity: learning from adverse events to improve care

The project seeks to improve the audit, investigation and peer review skills of South Australian and Western Australian regional and rural obstetricians and paediatricians who have been involved in perinatal adverse events that have resulted in an unexpected transfer to a special care nursery, neonatal intensive care unit or a perinatal death. By learning from these adverse events, clinicians can improve clinical and organisational practice.

A full day audit visit will be conducted by two facilitators which will include a retrospective 12-24 month record review; interviews with staff including obstetricians, paediatricians, midwives, registrars and anaesthetists; a review of practice surroundings, and checking compliance with the PSANZ guidelines. Verbal feedback will be provided at the conclusion of the visit.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Ms Anna Maloney

Colposcopy Quality Framework

The Colposcopy Quality Framework aims to address the gap in current government initiatives to maximise continuous quality improvement in the diagnosis and treatment of cervical abnormalities by developing resources to:

• Support rural specialists in conducting clinical and patient satisfaction audits to measure outcomes in relation to colposcopy and cervical abnormalities.
• Assist specialists in closing the quality cycle to use such audit to improve the quality of care and patient safety through self reflection, comparison with best practice guidelines, multidisciplinary peer review, action planning and evaluation.
• Equip specialists with the resources for ongoing completion of the audit quality cycle to continue to improve outcomes.
• Build networking opportunities to reduce professional isolation.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Sue Fitzsimon

A regionally-based interdisciplinary CPD and audit program for surgeons in Northern Australia

This project primarily targets General Surgeons and surgical trainees in centres across northern Australia – including Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Mount Isa, Darwin, Alice Springs and Broome. 

Fellows of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and rural Specialist Generalists will also be targeted for participation in the project.  Such specialists at Thursday Island Hospital will be invited to participate in this aspect of the project initially, before extending the invitation to those at other sites.

The project will consist of a number of strategies to support the continuing professional development of isolated rural surgeons:  

1.        Video Conference Educational Sessions (monthly)

2.        Northern Australia Surgeons Conference (annually)

3.        Professional Exchange Visits (approximately 1 per site over the 12-month period)

4.        Northern Australian Surgical Newsletter (monthly on-line or via-e-mail)

5.        Northern Australia Surgical Website (A password-accessible site will be developed to support exchange of ideas, notification of events and inter-institutional audit)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Assoc Professor Richard Turner

Rural Craft Group Audit

Following on from the Round Six SSRS Rural Craft Group Audit, the next round will involve up to eight rural or regional centres including Rockhampton, Echuca, Mildura, Darwin, possibly Mt Gambier, Colac and Broome. While the data will be collected at a hospital level, individual surgeons will be contributing their data to the audit, and will receive feedback on their complication rates.

Eight rural centres will be participating in complete audit of 5 to 7 key subject areas in order to provide a basis for comparison of acceptable surgical outcomes in rural/remote hospitals. This project will build on the successful outcomes of the 2007 ‘Rural Craft Group Audit – from Audit to Performance Monitoring’ project.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Merrilyn Smith

Better management of Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease in northern Australia through

Part A:

Coordination and infrastructure support to regularly link up physicians providing care to patients across Northern Australia, particularly those with valvular heart disease and especially Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders with rheumatic heart disease (RHD) - a forum for multidisciplinary discussion and shared management of cases including education/support especially of specialists working in smaller centres with case conferencing of assessment and options for intervention in individual cases.

The strengthening of a Northern Australian clinical network would also provide opportunities for development of specialist collaboration on other clinical areas, in locations with higher than averages rates of morbidity and premature mortality than the rest of the country, while at the same time helping to reduce professional isolation.

Part B:

Review and improve the management of these conditions through the development and implementation of a system of evaluating, analysing and improving pathways of care for individuals with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) /RHD involving local paediatricians and physicians. It will: 

·          Specifically be a quality assurance (QA) project with particular emphasis on the process of continuous quality improvement (CQI). 

·          build upon the principles of CQI by emphasizing analysis and where necessary realignment of organisations and systems which may impede the delivery of optimal care for ARF/RHD.

·          benchmark existing ARF/RHD care against established local and national evidence and protocols both at a local specialist service and ‘whole of health’ level including primary health care and tertiary referral centre access. 

Interim management endpoints will include identification of patients through local patient registers, frequency and content of specialist review (including access to echocardiographic monitoring) and uptake of benzathine penicillin prophylaxis to prevent ARF/RHD.

For a list of education events being carried out by the ARF & RHD in the North Project, please click here

Target audience:

For more information, contact Melinda Keresztes

Building capacity for simulation training to address learning needs of rural specialists managing...

Building capacity for simulation training to address learning needs of rural specialists managing sick children

This project will build on a Round 6 SSRS project entitled: “Achieving better integrated team-based care and use of clinical guidelines in acute rural paediatric practice”. 

Activity A

This component will utilise a paediatric simulation environment to provide a suite of training courses focusing on the care of children in the rural setting. This component has two broad aims:

(1) To up-skill rural specialists and better prepare them to manage complex and challenging acute paediatric presentations. Six one-two day courses will be held at the Sydney Medical Simulation Centre in Sydney for up to 12 participants per course.

(2) To build capacity for simulation training to be delivered from rural locations. This will be achieved by (1) conducting intensive train-the –trainer training for rural faculty and (2) developing training content that will be freely available for use by future trainers in any training facility. 

Activity B

In this component, the Sydney Medical Simulation Centre will mentor one rural facility (Shoalhaven hospital) to provide simulation training locally to 24 specialists. Expert staff based at the SMSC will work in a team with the Shoalhaven specialists to adapt the training conducted at the SMSC so it can be feasibly delivered from a smaller rural facility. Two one-day training courses will be conducted 

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Leonie Watterson

Peer Review Network for Rural Psychiatrists

Rural Psychiatrists have expressed the need to establish a Peer Review Network across Australia to be operated through the means of videoconference technology. A pilot program has run during 2006-2007 within the framework of the CPD for Rural Psychiatrists project within Western Australia successfully and has become self sustaining. It is now proposed that the opportunity to incorporate all of Australia in videoconferenced networks, for the purpose of satisfying RANZCP requirements for registration and Continuing Professional Development, has been created by the substantial participation in the CPD for Rural Psychiatrists project.

A series of networks are proposed of 4-8 psychiatrists linked by common interest rather than merely geography, would allow isolated psychiatrists to have regular linkage with peers for case discussion and review. This is expected to reduce isolation, enhance quality control and improve patient care.

Target audience:

For more information, contact Sarah Gafforini