Newsletter | Issue 2 | 2026

Welcome from the Head of Department

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to our second newsletter for 2026. This is the first edition since our Annual Awards Night, which was held on Tuesday 19 May at the Woodward Conference Centre and celebrates the important contributions of our teaching and research practices to progressing primary care as well as recognising the top performing students in the general practice term. This year we were treated to the sounds of live jazz, performed by The University of Melbourne’s Apollo Music Society, giving the evening a truly special feel. The theme for the evening was “Taking Time, Making Space ” with Prof Michelle Banfield, Prof Victoria Palmer and Dr Jennifer Bibb discussing the importance of incorporating lived-experience in primary care research, and showcasing their new flagship project, “A/part of the crowd” with its recently launched website, ‘A/site to belong”. Thank you to everyone who came along and congratulations to everyone who received an award. You can find out all the details in the dedicated article.

You may be aware that last year, The University of Melbourne was one of a handful of medical schools in Australia to be awarded 10 new Commonwealth Supported Places dedicated to attracting students with an interest in general practice into our Doctor of Medicine course. What you may not know is that eight of these places will form part of a new, streamlined primary care pathway that is being developed in partnership with Victoria University. Prof Caroline Johnson, Laura Velazquez, Dr Rebecca Starkie, A/Prof Kylie Vuong and Dr Sophia Vasiliadis are working alongside the Melbourne Medical School to design an engaging primary care stream that will help grow the GP workforce, through enhanced GP placement opportunities, mentoring and opportunities to contribute to research in primary care for a select group of aspiring future GPs within the MD cohort. The first intake will take place in 2027.

Congratulations go to A/Prof Justin Tse and the Data Connect team working with the Victorian Collaborative Cancer Centre, who have successfully secured $3.8M in funding over two years from the Victorian Government to incorporate all cancer datasets (e.g. VINAHL, VAED, VEMD, VIC Cancer Registry, PATRON/Ghranite with PBS and MBS data via AIHW) to provide a comprehensive picture of cancer in Victoria. The work of Data Connect+ will utilise the expertise of data analysts, researchers, clinician GP academics to review variations in care for cancer and work with hospitals, primary care and policy experts to address “Routes to Diagnosis” for cancer and ensure we understand why variations in cancer diagnosis occurs. Well done team.

Also in this edition, Dr Anneliese Willems shows MD students how to recognise suspicious lesions using a dermatoscope; the primary care cancer team collectively author more than half of the publications in the latest British Journal of General Practice – cancer edition; you can choose to participate in a range of new research projects; and discover some of the news articles you may have missed featuring our academics.

Happy reading,

Lena.