Newsletter | Issue 4 | 2023
Welcome from the Head of Department
Dear Colleagues,
And just like that – the end of the year is upon us! This is the final newsletter for 2023 and I would like to take a moment to reflect on this being the year where Primary Care reform is at the forefront for federal and state governments, and our professional colleges. The Strengthening Medicare Taskforce has introduced several early reforms such as voluntary patient registration and blended funding models along-side fee-for-service to encourage multidisciplinary care. The Medical Research Futures Fund has dedicated $50 million to best models of strengthening primary care calling for applications in 2024. Most recognise the importance of collaborative and multidisciplinary care given the complex interplay of chronic disease, personal factors, and social determinants of health which, unless addressed in health care can undermine the success of even the best precision medicine or surgical practice. General Practice and primary care is an essential setting and professional grouping to integrate attention to the personal and social circumstances of people with their medical management. It is also a vital setting for early intervention and preventive care. Integration of all primary care with the patient and their preferences at the centre is important to avoid fragmenting care with parallel primary care provision. The University of Melbourne’s Centre for Collaborative Practice has been established to lead on interdisciplinary training of health professional students and modelling how integration can occur in practice and underpinned by data integration initiatives. General Practice and primary care through our Department has been contributing to the activities to be taken forward by this Centre – for example introducing interdisciplinary team teaching – ‘train for how we play’ as the lead Prof Liz Molloy says.
One of the recurring questions that I have been asking myself throughout 2023 is “How do we inspire more students to choose general practice as their career path?” Exposing and addressing the current challenges faced by GPs at a state and federal level is vitally important but falls short of promoting the excellent holistic care undertaken by GPs and their teams on a daily basis. More needs to be done to promote the positives of this career and the varied paths available to a career in general practice, not least of which is academic scholarship where skills in teaching and research will inspire others and further the scientific basis of our profession. By increasing the exposure students have to general practice throughout their medical degree, introducing more role models and showcasing the variety and breadth of our profession, we can demonstrate the important role GPs play in our communities as clinicians, researchers, policy makers and educators. We are working on this with you all -especially those hosting medical students for teaching terms.
With that said, I am pleased to announce the following academic staff promotions: Dr Kristi Milley and Dr Ruby Biezen have been promoted to Level C, a level acknowledging national profile of their work, and Ms Tracy Murphy to Level B, acknowledging advanced teaching scholarship. These promotions are in recognition of their hard work, dedication and exceptional contributions to our team. Well done. We are also delighted to be hosting FIVE GP registrars for their Academic Registrar special skills year in 2024; congratulations to Dr Janani Paramanantham, Dr Amireh Fakhouri, Dr Emily Thrower, Dr Jenni-Marie Ratten and Dr Rim Ghali on being successful in their application to work with us. In this year our academic registrars learn about the scholarship of teaching and research alongside clinical work – it is certainly an entry path to further study such as a Masters or PhD or to clinical practice with enhanced skills.
We also welcome a new visiting researcher, Anne Søjbjerg from the University of Aarhus, Denmark. Anne will be staying with us for the next three months exploring different research environments and methods while she evaluates the Danish “Healthy Mind” intervention for patients with chronic physical conditions and reduced mental health. Welcome Anne.
After lengthy negotiations, I can now reveal that the Department of General Practice and Primary Care will be embarking on a major collaboration with Torch Recruit Pty Ltd to form a new entity called “General Practice Clinical Trials Australia”. This partnership will support the development and conduct of primary care research and patient recruitment by using innovative technology to increase patient diversity and maximise patient suitability. It will also ensure all Australians have the opportunity to participate in clinical trials through the utilisation of our national practice-based research networks. This is an exciting new adventure for the Department and we are looking forward to working with the team at Torch Recruit to further primary care research.
However, it is with sadness that we say farewell to our esteemed and treasured colleague A/Prof Jo-Anne Manski-Nankervis. Jo-Anne will be leaving the University of Melbourne in December to take up a position as Primary Care Research Lead in the Department of Family Medicine in Lee Kong Chian (LKC) School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, established in 1991 and now ranked 32nd University in the world. We wish her the very best for this exciting new appointment and we know she will do very well. Jo-Anne has been instrumental in establishing the Department’s secure data repository Patron used for research, policy and advocacy, and the Paul Ramsey Foundation funded Future Health Today intervention which is a clinical decision support technology co-designed with GPs to assist with quality improvement activity and clinical management support at the point of care. From these programs she has developed Torch Recruit as an independent entity, a software which enables patients suitable for different clinical trials to be identified from the electronic medical record, hence increasing the reach of trials to people who would most benefit. All these innovations will become embedded now within our Primary Care Trials Unit and are a marvellous legacy of Jo-Anne’s work while with us. She has also been instrumental in raising the ratings of GP learning amongst the medical students in her early career and now in inspiring general practice registrars to undertake PhDs. Her role as Chair of RACGP Research Advisory Committee will be known to many and is where she has successfully championed for PhD scholarship top-ups for GPs undertaking a PhD from the Research Foundation. This is a stellar legacy for the whole profession of general practice. Thank you Jo-Anne - we will miss you and your energy and passion for general practice and look forward to continued collaboration with you while you are in Singapore.
Enjoy the many other interesting articles in this final newsletter for 2023, such as the new training project that aims to integrate and support GP Registrars as clinical teachers in the general practice setting and the online wellbeing and connection program for carers not to mention all the fantastic conference presentations at WONCA and beyond. I encourage you all to have a read.
I would also like to invite you to view our new annual snapshot. This is a quick overview of our Department’s achievements for 2023. We will be sharing it on social media and placing a copy on our website.
Finally, I would like to say a big thank you to everyone who has engaged with the Department throughout the year. From those who sign on, year after year, to teach the next generation of general practitioners, to those giving their time to recruit and participate in research. It is your ongoing support and commitment that helps us deliver innovative research outcomes, inform and shape future health policies and inspire our future leaders and clinicians. We appreciate everything you do and look forward working with you again in 2024.
Warm regards,
Lena.