Newsletter | Issue 3 | 2025

Welcome from the Head of Department

Dear Colleagues,

I am writing this close to the AFL Grand Final Weekend in September – Melbourne is doing its four seasons in one day thing, which seems to be more pronounced in Spring and it is trying to get warmer! The footy and weather being much easier to focus on than world affairs at present. I have just returned from an OS trip to Geneva, Bristol and Singapore visiting colleagues in other Departments of General Practice and Primary Care. At least in the UK, Switzerland and Singapore there are similar considerations on how to best provide multidisciplinary primary care in an integrated way for those with chronic and/or multiple issues – what is the optimal workforce and funding model that improves accessibility, quality, sustainability and both patient and workforce satisfaction with the experience? These are some of the questions we are addressing with over 100 primary care researchers, consumers, clinicians, services, government reps and other partners in the recently soft-launched National Multidisciplinary Primary Care Research Policy and Advocacy Consortium, led by Professor Michael Kidd AO. Our Department was excited to join the other collaborators at the first national think tank in Geelong, held after the Australasian Association of Academic Primary Care conference on 12th August – see photo below. A website and LinkedIn page will be available by the end of the year so you can find out more and contribute your experiences and ideas about how to do MDT care well – we will keep you posted.

On to Department news… Firstly, I am pleased to welcome Chloe Dawes to our Department. Chloe is our new GP Liaison and Placement Coordinator and is a timely addition to our Teaching and Learning team as they embark on our annual approach to our wonderful General Practices who partner with us each year to provide placements for medical students to learn more about the art and science of general practice. We are indebted to you all in our education network for the experiences you provide our students – providing a stimulating GP experience for medical students is one way to arrest the decline in the choice of general practice as a career. Our students and our Medical School really value the general practices who provide these placements and the great feedback they receive from students. Did you know that over 50% of our first-year medical students were more likely to choose a career in general practice after they experienced our longitudinal first year placement in a general practice! We look forward to working with all GPs signing up for the coming year again.

Welcome also to Dr Lu Yang, our new MPhil Candidate under the supervision of Dr Cath Kaylor-Hughes, A/Prof Caroline Johnson and Dr Amy Coe. She will be investigating how digital mental health support can improve health care for people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

I am also delighted to announce the following academic promotions: Dr Alison Flehr, Sophie Chima and Dr Daniela Ramierez Duran have all been promoted to Level B, and Dr Javiera Martinez Gutierrez and Dr Sibel Saya have been promoted to Level C. Well done to everyone for the tremendous effort that went into meeting the required research, teaching and engagement milestones, as well as the many rigorous hours involved in preparing their applications. To those not successful this time around, I assure you that such setbacks are a normal part of the academic career trajectory. There is always value in the process, from the feedback and insights you will gain that will no doubt increase the likelihood of your success in future promotions rounds.

Congratulations go to Dr Sibel Saya on her successful MRFF grant application for the ROSELLA project. This exciting project aims to provide Australians with an individual polygenic risk assessment for the four most common cancers in Australia that can be delivered by their general practice. Sibel and the team will now test and identify various implementation strategies to determine how the new risk assessment could best be used by primary care clinicians and policy makers.

Another interesting project that has recently received NHMRC funding is looking at innovative digital solutions to optimise STI/HIV care in general practice. This project is being led by Dr Jane Goller from the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health with Prof Dougie Boyle, Dr Barbara Hunter and myself as Chief Investigators. The creation of this clinical decision support tool aims to address the dramatic increase in STI presentations over the past decade and will be codesigned with GPs, nurses and health consumers.

For those of you who are primary care clinicians working in adolescent space, you have no doubt noticed the increase in young people presenting with mental health concerns since the pandemic. Our Department recently partnered with Orygen to create a new micro credential called “Diagnosing and Managing Youth Mental Illness in Primary Care”. It's only 8-weeks long, full of excellent content that is all evidence-based, practical and actionable, delivered completely online and presented by Dr Chrissie Hughes and Dr Simone Craig. Registrations close on 3 October so if this interests you, stop reading and register now!

I would also like to congratulate everyone who has recently been in the media. It is fantastic to see your research appreciated and discussed in everyday conversations. Capturing the attention of journalists is hard work and time consuming but also rewarding, so well done! We have added an “in the news” section to the newsletter and will be sharing links to the relevant articles in case you missed them.

Happy reading,
Lena