Writing discharge summaries might not be the most exciting part of the job, but it's certainly a very important one. It's a critical piece in the transfer of care from hospital to the GP or other health service.
In this episode, you'll hear about how to write a good discharge summary from the perspective of an intern who regularly writes them, as well as a GP who regularly receives them. When done well, a discharge summary can help patients stay out of hospital;, enabling general practitioners to best follow the appropriate care plan.
However, many in the medical profession would probably agree, the entire discharge process could be improved to allow for better sharing of information and cooperation between health services. Therefore, this episode’s guests discuss what needs to be done to make the discharge system more efficient, as well as some of the changes that are already being implemented to discharge summaries across the Gippsland health services network, following a recent improvement project.
Guests:
Dr Tom Kefford - GP in Warragul, VIC and Medical Educator with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
Dr David McAlpine - medical intern in the Gippsland Rural Intern Training program, run through Latrobe Regional Health in Gippsland.
Jared Slater - Manager of Digital, Data and Insights at Gippsland Primary Health Network.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
How much can you plan your medical career in advance?
Dr Bridget Clancy is an ear nose and throat surgeon who's cared for more than 24,000 patients over the past 20 years. On paper, you'd look at her career and assume she must have strategically planned it out. But in this conversation, she reveals that that's not the case at all.
Dr Clancy left medical school thinking she would be more of a rural generalist, than a specialist. However, a combination of mentors and the need to balance family and work life led her down some unexpected, but ultimately very fulfilling career pathways.
In this episode, Bridget discusses the tough decisions she made in her career as well how her out-of-the-box thinking led to new opportunities. For instance, she became a pioneer in telehealth, when she mobilised her private practice very quickly during the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Dr Clancy has recently closed her practice in Warrnambool and is now focusing on more governance and policy roles within medicine, including as Chair of the rural surgery section of the College of Surgeons.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
Dr. Belinda Bell is a GP based in south-west Victoria, who vividly remembers breaking down into tears for apparently no reason, while sitting in a crowded lecture theatre as a young medical student.
She's very open about her past mental health challenges, including during her student and registrar years. Belinda says she learned the hard way about the need to prioritise her mental health; from eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep and knowing when to seek professional help.
This even meant requesting to work part time when she was a GP registrar, in order to cope with the workload. Something, which was unheard of at the time.
Dr Bell grew up, studied and interned in country NSW, before eventually settling in Warrnambool, where she is regarded as ‘the GP to see’ for mental health support.
In this episode, you’ll hear how Dr Bell turned her perceived ‘weakness’ of being a highly empathetic person into a doctor's super power. She also discusses how she continues to look after her mental health as a practicing GP and now a mother of a 3 year old.
Please be aware this episode also briefly discusses suicide. If you need to speak to someone, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
What makes a medical student or intern want to become a rural generalist? And what does that journey look like?
A rural generalist is a doctor who provides healthcare to regional, rural or remote communities. They are trained in primary care, emergency medicine and an advanced skill to meet the health needs of their rural community. This is in one of a number of disciplines, with the most common being obstetrics, palliative care, emergency medicine or anaesthetics. Rural generalists are a vital piece of Australia's healthcare system, bridging healthcare gaps in areas where there aren’t those other medical specialists.
In this episode, we ask three doctors who are early on in their rural generalist career, what their role is like, from the good days to the more challenging ones:
Dr Casey O’Connor - PGY6 doctor at Latrobe Regional Hospital, working in palliative care. She is part of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners training program.
Dr Rachel Sultana - PGY2 doctor at the West Gippsland Health Group in the paediatric ward. She is on the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine training pathway.
Dr Will Hardy - PGY2 doctor at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service. He is on the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine training pathway.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
Medicine is consistently rated as one of the most popular courses to study at university. However it is also ranked as one of the hardest. Students probably feel this the most at exam time. In this episode we speak to Brie Allman, a final year medicine student at Monash University, to reflect back on her degree and how she coped with exam nerves.
Brie grew up in northern NSW and is planning a long career in rural health. As she finishes her placements through Monash Rural Health in Gippsland, she admits her first year as a medical student was very difficult. She says she often felt overwhelmed and failed to look after herself properly. Since her first year, she has learned helpful strategies to make sure she keeps a balanced lifestyle, while also maximising study time.
Brie is also being mentored as part of the Dr JuMP Medical Mentoring program, which supports medical students, junior doctors and registrars in regional Victoria and Southern New South Wales.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
Is there a “right time” to have kids, when you have a career in medicine?
Perhaps that’s not the right question. Instead, in this episode, two rural doctors speak about the “right way” to think about making decisions about family and career.
Guests:
Dr Holly Atkinson- General Physician and Director of General Medicine at West Gippsland Healthcare Group in Warragul. She’s a medical oncologist and palliative care specialist.
Dr Alex Tai- Infectious Diseases Physician at West Gippsland Hospital and at Latrobe Regional Health in Traralgon. He also works at the Gippsland Region Public Health Unit.
Both Holly and Alex discuss how they manage the busy-ness of being parents, with the demands of being a doctor.
Holly is the mother of twin 7 year-old girls and she also has a 5 year old son. She recounts how she would walk the hospital wards with babies in a carrier, when she first returned to work. Holly also speaks about what having children at different stages of your career could look like from a work perspective; including the trainee years.
Alex is the father of two primary-school aged boys and also cares for his wife, who has chronic fatigue syndrome. He discusses how he overcame feeling uneasy about asking for support from family and friends and how changing the type of medical work he does has given him greater flexibility.
Ultimately, it is possible to have children and a great career in medicine. This episode offers some practical and philosophical advice on how to make it work.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
Many rural doctors feel uneasy about the medico-legal aspect of their job when they’re an intern. But while it is natural to feel uneasy, there is plenty of support available from senior doctors, nurses and administration staff.
While the media often focuses on ‘suspicious’ deaths, relating to homicide, that only makes up less than 2% of all the casework that’s carried out by forensic doctors. Indeed ‘suspiciousness’ is not even a criteria for reporting. So what is?
In this episode hear from:
Dr David Ranson - Adjunct Professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine at Monash University.
Dr Mau Wee - Head of Service at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.
Medico-legal, is not about blame, rather it’s about understanding how the death occurred and whether any systems need improving.
This episode features advice on how to seek out help if you are writing your first death certificate and how to ‘keep it simple’ when filling one out. Understanding when to report to the coroner is also discussed, along with what happens if you are required to prepare documentation for a coronial inquest.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
Being a rural GP, means being a key part of the community. It also provides you with great flexibility to balance the life you have outside of medicine.
In this episode, we have two contrasting stories; from Dr Tom Kefford, who became a GP to return to his hometown, to Dr Kingsley Rajasingham, a GP who moved to Gippsland 30 years ago, not knowing anyone.
They discuss the benefits and challenges of being a rural GP. For instance, how do you balance getting involved in the community, while keeping a professional distance? They also share their advice on how medical students and doctors in training can get the most out of their placements.
Guests:
Dr. Tom Kefford - GP in Warragul, VIC and Medical Educator with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
Dr. Kingsley Rajasingham - GP principal at Central Gippsland Family Practice in Moe, VIC.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
The transition from medical school to becoming an actual doctor can often be exciting and a little daunting.
Dr David McAlpine and Dr Reem Alameri are both medical interns in the Gippsland Rural Intern Training program, run through Latrobe Regional Health in Gippsland. However their journeys to get to their internships are very different, as well as their future career aspirations.
In this episode, we hear how they handled some of the challenges, from the paperwork to the days where the hospital is understaffed and even dealing with the emotion of caring for a patient who you know won’t survive.
Both David and Reem are incredibly generous and open in sharing their stories, including the highlights of the role - which continues to bring them both great passion and purpose.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
The first year when you can actually call yourself a doctor is obviously very important in a medical student’s career. However, the application process for where you will start your prevocational years has previously been opaque and sometimes confusing.
After a significant review to make the process fairer, the Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria (PMCV) has made multiple changes to the application match process.
In this episode hear from:
Julie Hatty - CEO, Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria
Dr Adam Walsh, pre-vocational doctor at Barwon Health, Co-Chair of JMO Victoria,
Melanie Vellios - pre-vocational workforce co-ordinator at the PMCV.
This episode features advice on how to apply and preference the health services you would like to work for, including the Victorian Rural Preferential Allocation, and why the changes have been made.
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For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to the Monash Rural Health website.
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here.
There’s a growing number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander doctors in Australia, but like a lot of things in Indigenous Health, this workforce is a lot smaller than it should be.
As we’ve explored in previous episodes on cultural safety and other aspects of Indigenous Health, the importance of culturally safe healthcare and being treated by a doctor who’s a part of your community is a huge factor in addressing healthcare disadvantages that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders face.
Hear from a few Indigenous medical students and junior doctors to find out how they see this situation themselves.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
If you’re at the start of your journey into medicine, you might be considering the Bonded Medical Program - it’s a Government initiative to help address the shortage of medical professionals in regional, rural and remote areas of Australia.
In this episode you’ll hear doctors who have gone through this program talk about their experience with it and get some useful tips on whether this program is a good fit for your journey into medicine.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
There have been some major changes made to prevocational training with a new two year framework for PGY1 (interns) and PGY2 trainees. In this episode you'll hear from people involved in these changes from the top down.
You can find out more about the AMC Prevocational Framework by heading to amc.org.au/framework
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
A career in rural medicine can involve moving to different towns and cities to complete parts of your training, so mastering the art of moving can really help make your overall experience much more enjoyable.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs
In 2021 the John Flynn Placement Program for medical students ended, and in its place came the John Flynn Prevocational Doctor Program for PGY1 to PGY5 junior doctors.
In this episode you’ll hear from people directly involved in the new program, and what it is doing to develop the skills of rural and regional trainees.
The Victorian Rural Generalist Program is the funding body for the The John Flynn Prevocational Doctor Program. If you’re interested in participating, reach out to the VRGP on their website: https://www.vicruralgeneralist.com.au/contact
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practising medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
In this episode we're taking a closer look at one of the ways doctors are getting to know more about cultural safety in Indigenous Health, the Joint Colleges Training Services
The JCTS is a joint venture of the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, delivering shared GP training activities for the two colleges' respective fellowship training programs and several other developments in the development and delivery of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.
You can find out more about the JCTS here: https://www.racgp.org.au/education/gp-training/gp-training/joint-colleges-training-services
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practicing medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
The VRGP is a statewide end-to-end training program that allows future rural generalists to train, work and live in rural and regional Victoria.
And one of the great benefits to this program is the support and guidance on offer for anyone looking at becoming a Rural Generalist in Victoria.
You can find out more about the VRGP, or get in contact with their coordinators, by heading to https://www.vicruralgeneralist.com.au/
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practicing medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
As part of their studies at Monash Rural Health, all medical students complete a six-week Scholarly Intensive Placement during their final year.
These placements allow you to focus on a particular medical or professional practice issue in-depth, by taking part in scholarly activities, such as analysing relevant literature, collecting data, reviewing policies, or developing new resources.
Thanks for listening! If you're PGY2 and above, reach out to Monash Rural Health because we're always looking for topics, ideas and supervisors. And if you're a Monash Alumni, it's a great opportunity to get involved in our teaching programs. You can get in touch by emailing rural.health@monash.edu
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practicing medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
There's so much to learn before you even start your first research project. In this episode we'll cover some fundamentals of research to get you started.
Hear from researchers about what it takes to get started in research with fundamentals like ethics applications, and methodologies.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practicing medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/
If you're finishing medical school and heading towards your Internship, we've made this episode just for you! To help start this exciting phase of your career, we sat down with four junior doctors in the GRIT program - Gippsland Rural Intern Training at LRH, Latrobe Regional Health in Gippsland - to reflect, tell stories and hear about lessons learned.
For more information about the study and training opportunities across regional Victoria, head to https://monash.edu/medicine/rural-health
The North West Victoria and Gippsland Regional Training Hubs have commissioned this podcast to help medical students and junior doctors learn more about training and practicing medicine in regional Australia. Find your nearest Regional Training Hub here: http://www.regionalmedicaltraining.com.au/regional-training-hubs/