Passionate medical professionals sharing knowledge on neurological rehabilitation

Professor Mary Galea, Academic Director of the Australian Rehabilitation Research Centre at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and Professorial Fellow in the Department of Medicine, is collaborating with Professor Fary Khan, Director of Rehabilitation Services at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, to work in the only Rehabilitation Flying Faculty in the world.

The Rehabilitation Flying Faculty travels to several developing countries every year to provide free face-to-face rehabilitation training.

The Flying Faculty is self-funded, and only exists because of the drive and passion of these doctors, who are compelled to close the knowledge gap currently being experienced in the healthcare services in these developing countries.

Professor Khan said they had noticed a number of problems with this training approach.

"What we found in the last five to seven years that in many developing countries there is significant interest in upskilling local rehabilitation personnel and medical specialists in the rehabilitation domains such as traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, stroke and amputation," Professor Khan said.

"However, resources are very limited in terms of financial support for travel and access to resources," she said.

"We believe online training and education programs are most feasible and relatively low-cost and, therefore, more affordable."

Both professors agreed to work together to develop an online course to repackage the Neurological Rehabilitation course at a fraction of the price, and make it accessible to more learners from around the world, including those from developing countries.

For more information about the Neurological Rehabilitation course visit go.unimelb.edu.au/mt2r