Rural Dermatology Conference

Using a variety of small group and interactive learning formats, ACD will hold a SSRS event in a regional centre, to deliver an educational program tailored specifically to the learning preferences and needs of dermatologists who practice in rural and regional Australia.

As a means of promoting rural practice this event will also be open to Trainee Dermatologists who undertake rural rotations, Overseas Trained Dermatologists who are currently undertaking up-skilling with the College and AON appointments occupying rural positions.

The education program will include:

• Clinical meetings and discussion of cases
• Interactive sessions on practical issues in contemporary rural practice
• Clinical updates on issues relevant to rural practice
• An overview of technologies used for conducting teledermatology

College: ACD

Target audience:

For more information, contact Claudia Casson

A regionally-based interdisciplinary CPD program for Surgeons in Northern Australia

The project aims to reinforce the CPD network established in Rounds 4 and 5 of the SSRS, by increasing the geographical extent of this existing network and to actively promote input from other disciplines in the enhancement of General Surgeons’ CPD.

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

In addition to General Surgeons and trainees, the current project will also formally invite the participation of selected specialists from other disciplines.  This will take the form of topic updates and case report commentaries at scheduled education meetings.

For a brief report from the Northern Australian Regional Surgeons Conference by Dr Richard Turner, please click here.

College: RACS

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Richard Turner

Integrated team–based care and use of clinical guidelines in acute rural paediatrics

This project aims to support rural specialists so they and their teams can provide high quality care to children suffering six key acute, serious conditions within their rural setting. These conditions are: asthma, bronchiolitis, meningitis, multi-trauma, head injury and sepsis. 

This will be achieved by:

College: RACP (+ANZCA & ACEM)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Leonie Watterson

Continuing Professional Development for Australian Rural Psychiatrists

This project is designed to complement and extend the recent project funded by the SSRS for the Western Australian Branch of the RANZCP. It proposes to identify the educational needs of rural psychiatrists and to identify the relevant teaching expertise. A series of six national videoconferences will be scheduled to enable interactive participation between rural psychiatrists and the specialists of their choosing. The Western Australian part of the project will also extend into interactive sessions with journal club meetings and case discussions.

Psychiatrists located in rural and remote locations in private or public practice. International Medical Graduates and psychiatrists-in-training will also be able to participate.

College: RANZCP

Target audience:

For more information, contact Sadie Robertson

Laparoscopy in gynaecology and surgery: practice review using audit of errors for improving safety

The number of errors and adverse events that happen during gynaecology and general laparoscopy surgery is unknown and while some of these issues may go unnoticed and not affect patients, some will potentially result in suffering for patients and require further surgery or other treatment.

This project aims to implement a quality framework for laproscopic audit for gynaecologists, surgeons and anaesthetists working in rural and regional areas, which includes:

Collecting data on errors that lead to more interventions or adverse events,

• Understanding the magnitude of the issue, to. Information collected at local level varies; so that it is proposed participants collect their own data or use aggregated data from their own units to guide a critique of their practice,
• Developing an action plan to addresses local issues or reflecting on issues from other centres and proactively changing practice to improve patient safety.

College: RANZCOG (+ ANZCA & RACS)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Hilary Peterson

Perinatal mortality and morbidity: Learning from adverse events to improve care

This project seeks to improve the audit, investigation and peer review skills of specialists who have been involved in perinatal adverse events ("near misses") that have resulted in a transfer to a neonatal intensive care unit or a perinatal death. By learning from these adverse events, clinicians can improve clinical and organisational practice.

College: RANZCOG (+RACP)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Lyn Johnson

Managing the pressures of rural psychiatry; Clinical leadership

Rural Psychiatrists are often expected to provide clinical leadership within a ‘virtual team’ environment.   This interactive tele-education series aims to:

• Enhance clinical leadership and teamwork skills of rural and remote psychiatrists;
• Reduce professional isolation and promote sustainable rural psychiatry networks through the use of the remote modes of education (Tele-education, desktop learning, asynchronous web forums, and consultation liaison);
• Support rural psychiatrists to manage complex emergency psychiatry presentations and the pressure of clinical leadership within the context of rural and remote practice in an integrated and collaborative way.

College: RANZCP

Target audience:

For more information, contact Sadie Robertson

Basic Assessment and Support in Intensive Care: Course for Rural Specialists

The aim of this project is to conduct one or more BASIC courses aimed at rural specialist (internal medicine physicians, surgeons, emergency medicine and other specialists) medical practitioners who are required to provide intensive care services to patients when no intensive care specialist is immediately available.

The BASIC course aims to provide an information and training update and refresh rural practitioners who are expected to provide intensive care services on an intermittent or infrequent basis to rural communities, when access to a specialist intensive care practitioner is not immediately available on site.

This 2-day modular course consists of a series of lectures and skill stations covering many aspects of the care of critically ill patients with an emphasis on supportive management, particularly mechanical ventilation.

College: JFICM

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Rob Boots

Improving the Care for Stroke Patients in Rural & Regional Areas: Rural Organisation of Stroke Teams

This project will support clinicians in rural areas to achieve best practice standards of care for stroke patients. The project (ROAST 3) will build on and extend the achievements of ROAST 1 and 2.

Four major learning topics have been selected to focus on during the project, including the assessment and management of muscular-skeletal spasticity, depression, cognitive impairment, and pre-hospital care.

Networking and ongoing support during the project will ensure ample opportunity is given to all participants to review and change their practice, as appropriate for their setting and situation. Practical solutions to barriers to implementing best practice will be discussed and reviewed. The project will aim at improving practice throughout the care continuum, from pre-hospital to sub-acute care. Benchmarking and performance review will be used as a mechanism for continuous quality improvement to be implemented and measured.

College: RACP (AFRM)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Dr Debbie Kesper

Emerging Techniques in Radiology

This new program will provide structured, informative briefings on the latest radiological techniques, in both Diagnostic Imaging and Interventional Radiology.

It will combine videoconferencing with established sites and pre- and post-circulation of specially developed training materials to enable rural radiologists to up-skill and also, promote their links with colleagues between city centres and the RANZCR existing rural network.

College: RANZCR

Target audience:

For more information, contact Pamela Taylor

Rural Craft Group – From Audit to performance Monitoring

This project will assist general surgeons in 8 rural and remote centres to participate in an involuntary audit, in order to provide a basis for comparison of acceptable surgical outcomes in rural/remote hospitals. 

The project will assist to facilitate the collection of data in specific topical areas and collation of comprehensive audit data for surgical procedures carried out in rural areas.

This data will then be analysed and the outcomes used to help define the benchmarks for acceptable complication rates in rural surgery.

College: RACS

Target audience:

For more information, contact Alicia Eaton

Scenario-Based Clinical Teaching Skills for Acute Care Medicine

The objectives of this program are to develop individual skills and institutional capacity for utilising scenario-based learning (SBL) principles to achieve educational objectives in acute care medicine, across a range of content domains.

Through delivery of a series of workshops, supported by online activities and resources, rural practitioners will acquire the knowledge, skills and perspectives to incorporate this learning modality into their current teaching and learning programs, irrespective of their institutional location or technologic resources.

The project focuses on development of an appreciation of the educational principles of SBL and acquisition of the skills required for effective design, delivery and evaluation of SBL activities. Through this activity the objective is to improve skills within the education component of the Professional Values and Responsibilities strand of the LEAP framework.

College: ACEM

Target audience:

For more information, contact Sarah Constantine

Improving clinical quality by enhancing organisational collaboration and skill development

This project has identified the opportunity to build on the QA skills recently taught to rural surgeons and to meet the needs of rural physicians by teaching CQI philosophy and skills in such a way as to engage them in conjoint projects that will enable sustainable clinical improvement.

Medical Administrators, Surgeons and Physicians will participate in workshops and be provided with the resources to be engaged in a rural setting, to enhance care delivery and bring about sustainable cultural change through the following:

• Providing Physicians, Surgeons and other Clinical Specialists with an opportunity to develop clinical improvement skills 
• Providing a forum to achieve mutual understanding and respect amongst the key specialties, using improving care as the driver of collaboration.
• Strengthening the learning process through the development of a Quality improvement “network”, with opportunities to share and enhance learning’s

College: RACP (+RACMA & RACS)

Target audience:

For more information, contact Grant Phelps