Newsletter | Issue 2 | 2024

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to winter! I am sure it is a busy time in the land of primary care with the current surge in respiratory viruses and 30% increase in Victorian COVID hospitalisations! I do hope you all stay as well as possible.

I would first like to introduce the two newest members of our Department, Dr Marita Long and A/Prof Justin Tse. Marita is a Victorian-based GP working across clinical practice, medical education and research. She joins the Department as a Lecturer in Primary Care with a strong interest in women’s health and dementia. Marita has developed and delivered many educational workshops both face-to-face and online and is passionate about upskilling GPs to deliver the best possible evidence-based care to patients. Welcome Marita.

Justin is a practising clinician and active Research Fellow with the Cancer Council of Victoria and prior to his previous role as the Director of Medical Education and the Clinical Dean at St Vincent’s Hospital, Justin was an Academic Registrar and Lecturer in this very Department. He now returns home as an Academic Specialist in General Practice and Primary Care. Welcome back Justin.

There have also been some new additions to our research teams. Dr Janelle Jones joins the PC4 team as the National Manager of the Primary Care Collaborative Cancer Clinical Trial Group; Kisanet Tefu joins the Primary Care Mental Health team as a Research Assistant in Recruitment and Engagement; and Allison Drosdowsky joins the Primary Care Cancer team as a Research Fellow in Cancer Services and Data Science. Welcome Janelle, Kisanet and Allison.

I would also like to congratulate Dr Fang Wang, who is this year’s recipient of the annual Dr Leon Carp Award, and Dr Anneliese Willems, who has recently been awarded a MACH HSR Fellowship. Fang currently works as a general practitioner at Box Hill Super Clinic with interests in men’s health, dermatology, geriatric medicine, paediatrics and chronic disease management. His research will focus on enhancing the screening and management of osteoporosis within general practice, working closely with Dr Andrew Donald and Dr Caroline McBride. Congratulations Fang.

The MACH research project that Anneliese will be working on looks at the clinical practice patterns and learning behaviours of post-Fellowship Australian GPs in primary care dermatology.  It aims to understand how GPs manage skin conditions, when referrals are made, and will explore factors that facilitate dermatological care integration into routine practice. You can read more about this interesting project in the body of the newsletter. Congratulations Anneliese.

After many months in the making, our new graduate research website “GR-Connect” was publicly launched in April. The first of its kind in the faculty, it is a place where past and present graduate researchers can connect, be inspired, access opportunities and support each other through a peer-to-peer mentoring program. So far 24 profiles are currently available on the site with more being added every week. Congratulations to Chiara Beccia for her efforts in spearheading the project and making it all happen.

It was wonderful to see so many of you attend the annual celebration of our general practice community at the Woodward Conference Centre on the 7th of May. Every year I am impressed by the achievements of our students and the dedication to teaching and research excellence shown by our Victorian general practices. I deeply appreciate the time and effort you so generously give to advance the discipline of primary care. We feature the award winners in this issue. The new casual format with standing drinks and canapes replacing a sit-down dinner allowed for greater conversation and networking. However, we will refine this further for next year so that latecomers don’t miss out on the food! The panel discussion with A/Prof Caroline Johnson, A/Prof John Furler, Dr Rebecca Starkie and Dr Hok Lim gave some insight into what it means to be a general practitioner and what the future may hold with the rapid advancement of medical AI and other technologies. Our audience was also treated to the premiere of our new promotional video “Why become a GP?”, aimed at inspiring future students to choose general practice as their career. We’ve included a link to the video in the newsletter, be sure to check it out.

There is an emphasis on research and policy in this edition of the newsletter with articles such as the need for GP guidelines to de-prescribe antidepressants and the Call to Action by the ALIVE National Centre that asks the government to rethink how research is conducted and who it represents. For those involved in the Data for Decisions program, there is also an update about the security measures that protect your de-identified data. To find out more about these and other interesting topics, read on below.

Warm regards,

Lena.