Research and Scholarship Activities - June/July 2026
Come along and discover the research and scholarship activities on offer in the Department of Medical Education (DME) in June and July 2026. Where session recordings are available you can access them on our DME Research and Scholarship Training Hub.
Click here to view the recordings
Thursday 4 June (1-2pm)
Session type: Research Focus Roundtable
Title: Navigating the discomfort dilemma in work-based assessment
Presenters: Prof Walter Eppich (The University of Melbourne) and Prof Margaret Bearman (Deakin University)
Overview: Discomfort is unavoidable in clinical training and practice. In particular, workplace-based assessment (WBA) is often associated with discomfort, which can be either unproductive or productive. In this talk, Walter and Margaret explore how productive tensions or discomfort can promote behaviour change to minimise future tensions and how clinical supervisors and trainees must develop the capacity to hold discomfort to foster learning productively. To illustrate key ideas, Walter and Margaret share short quotes from their empirical qualitative research to add richness to these concepts. In doing so, they expand the traditional conceptualisations of WBA to include informal moments of appraisal and explore the role of self-assessment in transformative learning. They also offer tangible guidance for clinical educators.
Associated paper: Navigating the discomfort dilemma in work-based assessment
Thursday 11 June (1-2pm)
Session type: Research Training Focus Roundtable
Title: Holding the problem open: Resisting fixed destinations in research
Presenter: A/Prof Tim Fawns (Monash University)
Overview: In health professions education, many doctoral students and clinicians begin research projects with a fixed destination that inhibits exploration of alternative ways of understanding a problem. Agendas of supervisors, institutions or funders often push the inquiry towards the development or testing of a predefined intervention, which while appealing, bypasses a critical phase of learning about the problem itself, its context and the assumptions shaping the problem. This talk discusses the value of holding research problems open, resisting premature closure in defining a research focus or outcomes.
Associated paper: Holding the problem open: Resisting fixed destinations in research
Thursday 18 June (1.00-2.30pm)
Session Type: ANZAHPE Online Professional Development
Title: Masterclass - Realist Methods
Presenter: Dr Rachelle Martin
Register at this link
Thursday 25 June – No Roundtable
Thursday 2 July – No Roundtable (ANZAHPE conference)
Thursday 9 July (1-2pm)
Session Type: Research and Scholarship Focus Roundtable
Title: ANZAHPE Christchurch 2026 Reflections and Learning on Scholarship and Research
Chair: Dr Brett Vaughan (University of Melbourne)
Overview: This session will involve a discussion on reflections from the ANZAHPE conference. We welcome those who attended to share their learnings, and those who didn't attend to come along to see what the main takeaways were.
Thursday 16 July (1-2pm)
Session Type: Scholarship Focus Roundtable
Title: Implementing equitable, antiracist classrooms (TBC)
Presenter: Dr Wajeehah Aayeshah (Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne)
Overview: TBC
Thursday 23 July – (1-2pm)
Session Type: Research Focus Roundtable
Title: Widening Access to Medicine a Realist Review
Presenter: Dr Emma Bartle (University of Western Australia)
Overview: Widening access to medicine is often framed as a problem of supporting individual applicants, yet persistent inequities suggest deeper systemic barriers. Drawing on a realist review of 32 studies, this session examines the mechanisms through which selection pathways influence diversity outcomes across contexts. It will consider how current approaches may reinforce the status quo and explore implications for research, policy, and practice.
Associated paper: Widening access to medicine: A realist review
Thursday 30 July (1-2pm)
Session Type: Research Training Focus Roundtable
Title: From Experience to Insight: The Role of Theory in Work-Based Learning Research
Presenter: A/Prof. Christy Noble (University of Queensland)
Overview: This session will examine how theory helps us, as health professions education researchers, turn experience into insights. It will explore how theory illuminates, explains and connects what we see in our workplaces.
For further information, please contact Ms Andrea Meyer: andrea.meyer@unimelb.edu.au
To download the Research & Scholarship Activities flyer for June/July 2026, click here