Celebrating teaching and innovation successes 2015 was a very successful year for many of the FMNHS teaching staff. Congratulations especially to Dr Sarah Mahoney and Mrs Jacky Lowe from the Flinders Southern Adelaide Clinical School. Not only were they successful in the 2015 Vice-Chancellor’s Awards for Excellence in Teaching for OCEP—the Onkaparinga Clinical Education Program, but they were also acknowledged nationally with an Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning for the same program. The OCEP provides third year medical students the opportunity to spend their entire year of study working in a community setting rather than a hospital. Students learn clinical medicine in general practices, specialist practices, and community health services and hospitals based in suburban Adelaide. The OLT citation was awarded for innovation and leadership in developing and sustaining a unique, immersive, longitudinal program of urban community-based medical education.
March 2016
faculty. Its focus is on improving student learning and creating practical, cost effective strategies to support staff”. Also at the Faculty level, two Executive Dean’s Teaching Excellence Awards were presented. Congratulations to: Prof Kidd with Chris Barr & Susan Rampling
collaboration. Congratulations to the successful team of Dr Chris Barr, Mr James McLoughlin and Ms Susan Rampling.
* Ms Stacie Attrill, Ms Amanda Wray and Dr Brenton Kortman, for their work in developing the Foundation Placement Education Workshops for health professionals providing clinical education.
At the Faculty level, two Executive Dean’s Teaching and Learning Innovation Grants were awarded. Congratulations to: * Dr Jessie Gunson, Dr Pen Roe, Ms Liz Abery and a large team from Social Health Sciences. This grant will be used towards a project to “improve understanding and communication of the learning outcomes that build programmatically across HLTH topics. The project will map core competencies across topics and develop user-friendly on-line curriculum framework for students and staff.” * Ms Jan Thompson from the School of Nursing and Midwifery to pursue the project “to provide a research base for the development of strategies to support casual academic staff across the
Prof Kidd with Amanda Wray & Brenton Kortman
*Professor Jennene Greenhill, Professor Adrian Schoo, Dr Koshila Kumar, Ms Katharine Cameron and Ms Lori Tietz for their excellence in supporting the transformative development of health professionals as educators, educational champions and leaders within the health service” through their work with the Master of Clinical Education.
Sarah Mahoney and Jacky Lowe receive their OLT citation
A team from Clinical Rehabilitation were also successful at the University level, being awarded a Vice-Chancellor Teaching and Learning Innovation Grant for their interactive case study development project, utilising technology to further interprofessional
Prof Kidd with Jessie Gunson, Liz Abery & Pen Roe
Prof Kidd with Lori Tietz, Katharine Cameron & Koshila Kumar
Education in Focus From the Executive Dean
A/Prof John Litt retires after 30 years at Flinders It is with some sadness that we farewell Associate Professor John Litt as he welcomes retirement after 30 years’ service to Flinders University, the School of Medicine, and the Discipline of General Practice.
Welcome to the 2016 teaching year. It is a pleasure to start this year by acknowledging our Faculty teaching, learning and innovation successes in 2015. Congratulations to the successful applicants from a very strong field. Particular recognition to Dr Sarah Mahoney and Mrs Jacky Lowe for the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) citation for their work with the Onkaparinga Clinical Education Program. If you are inspired by these successes, I encourage you to apply this year. Information on the OLT awards for 2016 is included in this issue. We are sad to farewell Associate Professor John Litt after 30 years’ service at Flinders University, and we pay tribute to his wonderful contribution to clinical practice and public health initiatives throughout his career.
‘…Continuity of Care (was) well in advance in determining the outcomes of care…’ and still remains a cornerstone of the General Practice academic program. Professor Worley further commented that John ‘…underpinned the teaching program…’ and has been John completed his MB, ChB in 1978, at the ‘…rock that General Practice is built University of Adelaide, where he was around…’. Over the last 10 years John the top student of that year and then has expanded GP placements (studentundertook many post graduate degrees days) by nearly 400% with nearly all including a PhD at Flinders University in offering parallel consulting as an 2007. option. John’s clinical career was based in the In addition to his role at the University Emergency Department at Noarlunga and in clinical practice, he has been Hospital, long before it became the heavily involved in research, and has emergency department, when it worked with the RACGP, sitting on started as a ‘Drop In’. This position many state, national and international involved patient care and teaching, committees. He has significant supervision of GP Registrars and later involvement in Smoking Cessation, supervising students as part of the Men’s Health, Health Promotion and Graduate Entry Medical Program and Disease Prevention and Immunisation later the Doctor of Medicine. and Professor Worley commented that John combined his clinical practice with ‘…many children growing up (are) academia, and since 1987 has served pleased that John did the hard work on the Discipline of General Practice and vaccination …over the decades…’. all its predecessor departmental In addition, John set up the State names. Influenza Advisory Group, which has increased the influenza vaccination rate He has mentored GP trainees, GP in those 65 years and older from 29% in registrars and RMO’s and in 1997 1993 to more than 80% nationally. implemented Continuity of Care into the medical program. As the Dean, Professor Paul Worley commented at John’s recent retirement function:
Thank you John for your commitment and service to medical education and enjoy your well deserved retirement!
I invite you to read about the Remote Health Experience, which provides our students with the opportunity to learn invaluable skills for rural and remote health professionals. And also review the latest update on academic integrity and text-matching software. Professor Michael Kidd AM Executive Dean Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Flinders University
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Participants from the 2015 Remote Health Experience in Katherine
Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences Remote Health Experience – Katherine, Northern Territory Imagine you are with a small team of health professionals who are the first on the scene at a car rollover, 100km from the nearest town. You find the four occupants with a range of issues: a gashed leg, a sprain, heat-stroke and an allergic bee-sting reaction. With help so far away, you need to assess the surroundings, show leadership, prioritise assistance, provide first aid, improvise health care and collaborate with others. This example is just one of the many simulation stations at the Remote Health Experience, held at the Flinders Katherine site in the Northern Territory. The 3-day experience has been held each year since 2011 and is coordinated by Associate Professor Pascale Dettwiller. In 2016, it will be held March 18-20. It is a wonderful opportunity for students from the Flinders University Northern Territory Medical Program, Charles Darwin University nursing and pharmacy programs and Aboriginal health worker programs from Batchelor Institute, to come together to learn about remote health issues in context.
The learning is intended to have a particular focus on multidisciplinary and interprofessional practice. This involves participants interacting with other health care professionals as a team to improve health outcomes for individuals and communities and role-modelling from the facilitators. The resource-poor environment and Aboriginal health issues underpin many of the scenarios using simulated case studies. There is a focus on skill development and the ability to improvise in the surroundings. After some generic sessions on rural and remote practice, practical information, and team building exercises, participants are formed into mixed discipline groups of 7-8 students, and are required to rotate through five clinical simulation stations. Remote practitioners and educators provide training and the feedback on individual performance, while group members also provide peer feedback. On the final day the Banatjarl Wumin’s Grup provide sessions where participants are educated
Roll over: dealing with casualties
Learning about bush medicines about traditional practice, and a traditional painting activity is undertaken by the students, finding local symbols to relate to their remote health experience. Participants in the 3-day event stated that it provided them with a wealth of knowledge and experience, that it was well organised and that they would recommend the experience to all students. Facilitators hoped that the experience built resilience, character, communication skills and compassion, as well as being fun for those who attended. They also hoped that participants would one day return to help as facilitators. The training undertaken as part of the Remote Health Experience is designed by a collaborative group from Flinders’ NTMP, Charles Darwin University (Nursing & Pharmacy), the Batchelor Institute, clinical educators and staff from the Flinders Katherine site, WurliWurlinjang Health Services, Sunrise Aboriginal Medical Health Services, Paramedics from St John’s Ambulance and Flinders University in Adelaide. Each year stations are reviewed by facilitators to reflect the results of the process evaluation. A short video was created from the 2014 Remote Health Experience, showing the simulation stations and student feedback, and can be viewed via this web link: https://youtu.be/XKHmLVb8I3Y Pascale.dettwiller@flinders.edu.au
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Education in Focus
Academic Integrity update As advised to academic staff in 2015, text-matching software must be utilised in conjunction with the assessment of all textcomposed student assignments from First Semester 2016. Academic Senate has approved amendments to the Academic Integrity Policy which embed this new requirement. Incorporated within the amended policy is a statement of staff responsibility for ‘familiarising themselves with the use of the University's text-matching software and how to interpret the results of text-matching in relation to academic integrity’. As staff already familiar with the software appreciate, textmatching software simply matches text. Whether a matching of text constitutes a breach of academic integrity is a matter of inspection and judgement which the software itself cannot undertake. The text-matching software provides a score indicating the proportion of text that is identified as matched, but the score in itself is not a guide to any breach of academic integrity. A high score may arise from entirely acceptable practices; conversely a low score may arise from an unacceptable breach of academic integrity. Teaching staff are also reminded that they are responsible for ensuring that students are familiar with the requirements of academic integrity, and for directing students to the resources and support provided by the University. Several initiatives have been undertaken to support the shift to compulsory use of the text-matching software. FLO pages for topics have integrated text-matching into the FLO assignment tool and provide a draft text-matching submission box for use by students for self-educational purposes and to check their own work prior to submission. A new University academic integrity web page has been developed to provide essential information and links to resources for staff and students. There is a new FLO page Academic integrity for staff. The page includes links to the Policy and to the process for managing alleged breaches of academic integrity. A new feature of the staff resources is a self-paced online tutorial for staff to familiarise themselves with general principles and practices around academic integrity as well as the interpretation of the similarity reports produced by textmatching software. This tutorial is equivalent to the face-toface academic integrity workshop that is offered through the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching.
OLT awards in 2016 A reminder to staff of the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) awards available for 2016: Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning Institutional deadline 18 April; OLT deadline 5 May. Citations are awarded to those who have made a significant contribution to the quality of student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained period, whether they are academic staff, general staff, sessional staff or institutional associates. The most accessible of the OLT Awards, up to 150 Citations, including the Early Career category, with prize value of $10,000 each, are available in 2016. Awards for Programs that Enhance Learning Institutional deadline 14 June; OLT deadline 7 July. These awards ‘recognise learning and teaching support programs and services that make an outstanding contribution to the quality of student learning, and the quality of the student experience of higher education’. Up to 12 Awards with a prize value of $25,000 each will be granted across the six categories in 2016. Awards for Teaching Excellence Institutional deadline 14 June; OLT deadline 7 July. These awards recognise ‘the nation’s most outstanding university teachers in their fields’. Up to 16 Awards, each with a value of $25,000, will be granted across the eight categories in 2016. One of the recipients is further recognised with the Prime Minister’s Award for Australian University Teacher of the Year. Staff are encouraged to consider these awards as an avenue for seeking recognition and support for excellent teaching or teaching/student-related work. Information including dates and nomination instructions are available via the Awards and Grants link on the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) web page.
Education in Focus is an initiative of the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences at Flinders University Comments and suggestions for future articles are welcome Also available online: www.flinders.edu.au/health-sciences/current/publications.cfm Editorial Team: Ms Monika Vnuk, A/Prof Claire Drummond, Ms Kelly Meier, A/Prof Barbara Sanderson, Dr Wendy Abigail and Dr Yvonne Parry
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