Acute Neurotrauma

Royal Australasian Collge of Surgeons (RACS)

Three workshops focusing on training in burr-hole surgery for head trauma emergences will be offered over the course of three years. Each workshop will provide the foundation for improved acute head injury management and be facilitated by two neurosurgeons. An e-learning activity and a training video will also be produced to compliment the workshop and assist future and past participants in the maintenance of their knowledge and skills. The program content in based on the information contained in the booklet  ‘The Management of Acute Neurotrauma in Rural and Remote Locations’ produced by the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia.

Project Type

Workshop and elearning activity

Project Duration

3 years

Target audience

Rural Clinicians, International Medical Graduates, Rural Surgeons, Trainees.

For more information, contact Merrilyn Smith

The Occasional Intensivist

College of Intensive Care Medicine (CICM)

Annual seminar/workshop meetings with content aimed as an update/up skilling suited to the multi-disciplinary specialists providing clinical ICU services in rural and regional hospital locations. Typical content would include updates in paediatrics, retrieval, resuscitation, indigenous health, H1N1 management as well as simulation/skill station training.

Project Type

A series of combined workshops, seminars and simulation sessions

Project Duration

2 years

Target audience

CICM Fellows, Multi-disciplinary specialists

For more information contact Phil Hart

Rural CPD web portal

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP)

The aim of this project is the up-skilling or re-skilling for rural practitioners from any medical or allied health discipline. Easy access to a calendar of Continued Professional Development (CPD) events, templates and guidelines for CPD activities, and multidisciplinary webinars, will enhance mental health practitioners’ involvement in well informed and locally relevant CPD and enabling access in a time efficient way will improve the practice of mental health care in rural, remote and regional Australia.

The project will deliver an online CPD portal that will comprise:

1. A list of CPD events for the information of rural mental practitioners
2. templates and guides for the conduct of CPD activities (e.g. journal clubs, clinical audit) to support practitioner initiation of activities
3. quarterly delivery of interactive webinars, made available to multidisciplinary groups of mental health professionals to supplement the current CPD calendar of events. The webinars  will:

a) utilise panel discussions, discussion of case studies, question and answer sessions, and hypotheticals, and

b) will cover a range of issues pertinent to practice in rural areas, with topics informed and decided by a clinical reference group and via suggestions made by practitioners to the online portal.

Project Type

Up-skilling or re-skilling in areas of clinical practice, interactive tutorials, virtual meetings

Project Duration

22 months

Target audience

Psychiatrists, Mental Health Professionals

For more information, contact Anne Ellison

Enhancing performance through Self Audit and Peer Review

The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators (RACMA)

This project complements the Round 1 funded project “A National Management and Leadership Peer Review Group for medical managers” by adding a Self Audit and Peer Review tool for the use of clinical leaders and managers to utilise in support of their own professional development and performance enhancement. It will further build the network of managers and leaders throughout Australia who come together to support their peers with professional input leading to best practice solutions.

This program will be open to specialist medical managers (Fellows of the RACMA) and specialists from other colleges who occupy management or leadership roles.

The Self Audit and Peer Review tool will be developed collaboratively with participating colleges and piloted in the first year of the project, then four further rounds will be conducted in the second year.

Each Self Audit and Peer Review round will involve a participant nominating a mentor and 15 reviewers. The mentor and participant will attend a Giving and Receiving of Feedback workshop. The participant will initially appraise themselves via the Self Audit and Peer Review tool. This same survey tool will then be circulated to the reviewers for completion. The results will be de-identified, collated, reported and communicated to the participant by the trained nominated mentor. An evaluative web conference and survey with all participants, mentors and reviewers will be held after each round. Participants will also be surveyed at least six months after their involvement in the program to track their progress and development.

If you are interested in being involved in this project then please contact Michelle Barrett Dean at RACMA on 9824 4699 or mbarrett-dean@racma.edu.au

Project Type

eLearning Modules

Project Duration

2 years

Target audience

Specialist medical managers, Clinician managers, Specialists from colleges who occupy management or leadership roles

For more information, contact Michelle Barrett-Dean

Indigenous Health Modules: Rural Specialist Resources

Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA)

Create a series of short independent learning podcast modules focusing on the needs of rural/remote specialists working, or intending to work with Indigenous patients. The focus of the modules will be to provide relevant specialty specific information to improve communication and knowledge of specialists regarding Indigenous health and cultural competence. The Moodle platform will be used to develop an online space for moderated rural/regional specialist discussion. The modules will be made available through the Inter-College Indigenous Health and Cultural Competence Online Portal which will be accessible to specialists across the medical colleges.

Project Type

Development CPD material for “Indigenous Health and Cultural Competency” Online portal.

Project Duration

1 year

Target audience

Rural/remote International Medical Graduates (IMGS), Anaesthetists, Pain medicine specialists

For more information, contact Paul Cargill

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

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RANZCOG)

The project seeks to improve the audit, investigation and peer review skills of 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 events, clinicians can improve clinical and organisational practice

A full day audit 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 Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand. Verbal feedback will be provided at the conclusion of the visit, followed by a detailed report.

Project Type

Audit and peer review

Project Duration

2 years

Target audience

Regional and Rural obstetricians, Paediatricians, Neonatologists, Pathologists

For more information, contact Matthew Davies

Practice Visits: reviewing specialist practice to improve the safety and quality of care

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists (RANZCOG)

Practice visits provide collegial peer review of specialists within their work environment. This type of review consists of a preliminary surgical logbook patient satisfaction questionnaire, practice profile survey, observation of major and minor surgery, a peer visit with two outside Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, interviews with colleagues, and record review.

The outcome of the visit is for the specialist to gain an understanding of their performance/ competencies while gaining frank feedback about areas of vulnerability that could be addressed to improve patient care. The impact of this local CPD is comprehensive through the use of a large variety of data and investigation sources, which input into the outcome includes a variety of interested stakeholders.

Project Type

Quality Improvement

Project Duration

2 years

Target audience

Specialist obstetricians, Specialist gynaecologists

For more information, contact Matthew Davies