MacHSR Future Leaders Fellowship awarded to Dr Tim Chittleborough

The MacHSR (pronounced “Maxer”) Future Leader Fellowship program will support a select cadre of established front-line clinical staff to address practical healthcare problems through HSR training and solutions.

Dr Tim Chittleborough

Awardee Dr Tim Chittleborough
MBBS DMedSc FRACS
Colorectal and General Surgeon

MacHSR will bring clinicians with the best research-tractable ideas together with academic HSR experts to define the research needed to find an evidence-based solution to a practical healthcare problem. This process will be started with award of a one year, 0.2 FTE MacHSR Future Leader Fellowship. Successful Fellows will be released from clinical duties flexibly on a 0.2 FTE basis, in a manner that minimises service disruption, to undertake with (an) academic supervisor(s) work that is preparatory for a formal HSR project pertinent to providing an evidence-based solution to the problem that interests the Fellow. Deliverables at the end of the one-year fellowship could include an evidence-based solution to the identified problem, or more likely, a pilot study, collaborative application for research grant funding to address the problem, or a full-time problem-solving secondment such as those competitively offered by Safer Care Victoria. Fellows will continue to be paid in full by their health service (or at existing commitment) but allowed 0.2 FTE for MacHSR work for one year. Back-fill is to be funded by the health service employing the Fellow, MACH does not provide these funds. On completion of the fellowship, the cohort will be supported by MACH to maintain regular interaction between themselves and the HSR experts with whom they have trained.

Formal part-time HSR training will be offered to the Fellows during the first six months of appointment in the form of registration for the University of Melbourne Master of Public Health (MPH) 6-month part-time elective in HSR. A fee would be levied ($4,424 for those seeking assessment leading to 12.5 points towards the MPH; and $2,656 for unassessed work). Where Fellows have access to personal CME resources (e.g., medical consultants) it would be expected that these monies are used to cover the fee.