Newsletter | Issue 4 | 2024

Welcome from the Head of Department

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the final edition of the Department of General Practice and Primary Care newsletter for 2024.

We are certainly in an era of change in primary care. With the scope of practice, Kruk, After-Hours Primary Care Programs and Policy, and the General Practice Incentive reviews, just to name a few, there is much reading to do and assimilate over the Christmas break!  I have also just returned from Canada where we were working with colleagues from the University of Toronto Department of Family and Community Medicine on a realist review of task shifting in primary care, and from the North American of Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) conference in Quebec City where we ran a workshop on enablers of effective collaborative care models and another on working with AI. I am hoping the The evidence reviews and many discussions amongst key informants with policy and lived clinician experience from other parts of the world such as the UK, USA, Canada, and The Netherlands will provide insights which will contribute to contribute to our own vision for health systems of the future, of which primary care is a fundamental part. what we want for primary care in Australia. Keeping up with the rapid pace of change in AI is also a challenge/opportunity that I understand was a big topic in GP24 too.

I think the Quintuple Aim of Health Care Transformation is a perfect guide for what should underpin any new model of care. Paraphrased, it needs to improve the patient experience (Aim 1) and outcome (Aim 2) at a lower cost (Aim 3) while ensuring clinicians’ well-being (Aim 4) and health equity through addressing the social determinants of health which drive 70% of health outcomes (Aim 5). The aspiration of these aims, which view healthcare as an investment and not a cost to societies, are better health for all and an improved economy.

Our Department and Medical School have been focusing on promoting the benefits of a career in general practice to medical students, highlighting the breadth of skills needed and the variety of presentations seen. It appears to be having a positive impact, as next year we will have a record number of students in our placement program and there has been increased interest in our general practice research stream. Click here to watch the video of why be a GP.

Our Department Family has also had some celebratory news:

Promotions – congratulations to Laura Tarzia on her recent promotion to the level of full professor, in recognition of her tireless efforts and ongoing commitment to primary care research in the field of sexual and reproductive violence against women.

Awards - congratulations to:  Dr Amy Coe, who was recently awarded the Melbourne Medical School’s Graduate Researcher (Discovery Researcher) Prize for her exceptional work on understanding Australian general practice patients’ decisions to deprescribe antidepressants; Hayley Barker, who received an Indigenous Staff Excellence Award for Professional Excellence for her “Green it and they will come” initiative that aimed to entice staff back to the office with the installation of more than 50 plants over two floors - the plants making a noticeable difference to the aesthetics and also to the sense of community; Dr Bianca Forrester for her Australasian Association of Adolescent Health (AAAH) award for excellent contribution to young people’s health in design of education and clinical support for the Victorian Doctors in Secondary School’s program and other adolescent health teaching; Planning Saw, former Honours student, for his AAAH young person of the year award for his leadership of education on global health issues and empowerment for young people so that their voice can be counted; and Dr Valerie Quah for receiving the RACGP 2024 Standing Strong Award for her research into gestational diabetes in First Nations communities.

The Children and Young People’s research stream had some further good news. The NHMRC Partnership trial led by MCRI and on which we are a partner – Strengthening Care for Children (SC4C): Impact of an Integrated paediatrician-general practitioner model on referrals to hospitals – a stepped wedge cluster randomised controlled trial - won the Australasian Association for Academic Primary Care (AAAPC) and North American Primary Care Research group (NAPCRG) Distinguished Paper Award. I presented this paper on behalf of the partnership in plenary sessions at the AAAPC Conference in Sydney in August and at the NAPCRG conference in Quebec City, Canada in November.

On to the newsletter, in this issue, you will find an article on our new NHRMC Centre of Research Excellence on sexual violence, which will be led by Prof Laura Tarzia with Prof Kesley Hegarty and Prof Victoria Palmer and a team of investigators from The University of Newcastle, UNSW, Monash University, Coventry University in the UK and John Hopkins University in the USA. With sexual violence affecting one in six Australian women and one in 25 Australian men, there is a pressing need to improve the health system response and this program aims to create new pathways to healing.

Following this, we direct your attention to our new mental health initiative: “Whose Care is Left Behind?”. This five-year project seeks to address structural inequalities affecting priority populations in Australia and will be led by Prof Victoria Palmer and the Alive National Centre for Mental Health Research Translation in collaboration with eight universities and seven partner organisations.

We share the new Data for Decisions report, where practices can discover what research their de-identified data has contributed to as well updates and presentations from international conferences, trauma-informed subjects for health science students, writing retreats and much more. It’s a jam-packed edition and I’m sure you will enjoy reading it.

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 doctors, 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 2025.

Warm regards,

Lena