August 2008 Newsletter

Latest News

EXAM SUCCESS 
RVTS has enjoyed recent exam success with John Robson and Russell Thompson passing their RACGP exams. Rod Martin also successfully completed the Structured Assessment Using Multiple Patient Scenarios (StAMPS) as a part of his ACRRM assessment. Well done to all.

A PRESIDENT IN OUR MIDST 
Congratulations to RVTS Director Dr Chris Mitchell on his recent success in the RACGP elections.  Chris has been elected as president of the RACGP and will take up the position in October.

WEBSITE A REALITY
AFTER a pretty hectic few months, and one or two moments of madness, the website is now up and running. We believe it is a vast improvement on its predecessor and will provide greater access and information for registrars in the program and those interested in joining us in the future. Banner images, which better represent the diversity of the organisation, and a user-friendly interface, are two important additions to our on-line presence. Drop down menus have been designed to help navigate users through the site. A lot of thought and work has gone into the site but we are eager for feedback. We need to find out what we may have missed or how the site could be refined. Please have a look … http://www.rvts.org.au/

2009 APPLICATIONS CLOSING SOON
APPLICATIONS for the 2009 RVTS intake close on 1 September. Fifteen places are available nationally. For further information and to download an application form go to the RVTS website - http://www.rvts.org.au/applicants.aspx.

$100 UP FOR GRABS
PHOTOGRAPHERS, we're after your shots. RVTS is looking for photos to use in marketing material, publications and the website. To have a chance at winning a $100 book voucher send us a photo of you, your town, your practice, your location. Get those cameras clicking. Competition closes end of month.

Upcoming Events

MELBOURNE WORKSHOP
THE next RVTS workshop will be held in Melbourne at the beachside suburb of St Kilda from November 17 to 21.
The legendary Professor John Murtagh, author of General Practice, will be running one of his renowned musculo-skeletal workshops on day 1. His words of wisdom will be followed by some light hearted exercise in the martial arts. The aggression management session has a constructive purpose with tips for dealing with threatening patients. Partners are encouraged to join in.
This workshop will be the first to include a program of events for families including riding the Melbourne trams, a visit to the Zoo and Luna Park.
Events on the program include Emergency Skills at the College of Surgeons, Airway Management, Obstetrics, Women's Health including Breast and Pelvic Examination, CPR update and the usual Exam Preparation.

GPET CONVENTION
CHIEF executive Pat Giddings and medical educators Louise Baker, Susan Wearne and Trudi Cullinan will attend the annual conference in Wollongong on August 27 and 28.
Susan will present a paper on the career paths of past graduates of RVTS. It is the result of a survey of doctors that completed training between 1999 and the end of last year. Twenty three of the 24 completed the survey. The online survey has provided a strong endorsement of the training program. It found that RVTS registrars provided an aggregate 37 years of service in rural and remote Australia during their training. The study also found that a high percentage of RVTS registrars continue to work in regional and remote Australia.
On the global assessment of the effectiveness of RVTS training for clinical practice, 11 doctors felt that RVTS had prepared them extremely well, the other nine felt it had prepared them very well. None selected the options well, not so well or poorly.

TELETUTORIALS

Supervisor News from Dr Susan Wearne 

SUPERVISOR'S TELECONFERENCE
Our next teleconference for RVTS Supervisors will be held on 3 September 7.30 pm EST. This gives supervisors a chance to give feedback on the year so far and for me to gauge your enthusiasm for an RVTS Train the Trainer course. The following week I will attend a workshop in Adelaide about gpStart, so this meeting will also give me an opportunity to provide feedback on the usefulness of this resource. Please let me know if you have any other agenda items.

New Supervisors
Welcome to Peter Burrows (Toowoomba, Qld), Max Chalmers (Darwin, NT) and Tom Doolan (Kilcoy, Qld) as new supervisors.

LEARNING STYLES
When I started out as a teacher, I assumed that everyone learnt the same way as me - by quiet, studious reading of textbooks (the bigger the better). Naturally I planned my teaching sessions to be quiet and studious...Then a medical educator introduced me to the concept of learning styles. What a revelation, people learn differently. Suddenly I understood that it’s Ok for my husband to learn how to use a mobile phone by using it even if I prefer carefully digesting the instruction manual.

Then the penny dropped: as an educator I need to plan a variety of teaching methods to cater for different learning styles. I began to use pictures, illustrations and role-play. Teaching is now more fun and hopefully more effective. Evidence confirms my old pattern that teachers teach according to their own style. There are several different learning style questionnaires. One is the VARK score. Why not do the questionnaire and see whether you are a visual, aural, reading or kinaesthetic (doing) learner. http://www.vark-learn.com/english/page.asp?p=advice

Next time you are teaching deliberately include a teaching method or activity for a different learning style to your own.

At the Coalface

ROSEMARY LEE FLIES TO WORK
Twice a week RVTS registrar and mother of six takes the 20-minute flight to Nguiu in the Tiwi Islands.

Rosemary spends two days at a time on the job, one day back in the office, and then back again to finish the working week. Dr Lee took on the challenging role in the community of 2000 just over a year ago. She says her chaos management work style made her the perfect fit.

“I’m warming the seat for a permanent doctor, they have been unable to hold onto a permanent GP for the past four years,” Dr Lee says with an infectious laugh. “A lot of the burden has fallen on the nurses and health workers and it took its toll. “Without someone at the helm there was a consistent turnover of nurses and that threw everything into chaos, everyone was new, no one knew where anything was and things tended to get frenzied and a bit frazzled. “But I live in chaos, chaos is my mode so I was no more frazzled than I usually am so I was the logical choice of my colleagues to take on a more permanent role.”

Dr Lee was born in India, grew up in Queensland, went to the Kimberleys and “somehow ended up in Darwin”.
She was part of a rotation of doctors travelling to various remote locations from a base at Darwin Hospital prior to the Nguiu appointment.

Dr Lee joined RVTS two years ago in September. She says the training has been fantastic.
“Prior to RVTS I had been doing some public health training and it really didn’t suit me,” Dr Lee said. “But I’m more used to scruffing about in the dust or at the coal face rather than the big picture administrative stuff.”
“Then flying in and out four days a week you feel guilty about leaving your family to do more training, you don’t get to the division meetings.”
“So it got to the point that I realised I was not really getting a lot of ongoing education.”
“But RVTS was a lifeline; it has been wonderful.” “It is people who are excited about ongoing education, who have so much experience to share with you and getting two weeks a year to discuss issues and concentrate on learning new things – well that’s just amazing.”

Ideally Dr Lee would move to Nguiu for a year. She says only then do you really become part of the community. “I just can’t boot enough children out of home yet,” Dr Lee dismisses with a laugh. “I have six children and three are still here, the youngest only seven.”

Dr Lee is blown away by the medical challenges facing the Nguiu community but sees that only a collaborative approach with the people of the community is going to make a change. She says there is a heavy burden of chronic disease among the Tiwi people. “They have one of the world’s highest rates of renal failure,” Dr Lee said. “Last week we buried a 40-year-old who died of renal failure, two women under 40 have started dialysis this year. “They have the worst lungs I have ever encountered but no one seems to get excited about documenting it – yes, they are smokers but it is just horrendous and no one knows why."

"The locals say Nguiu was never meant to be a permanent village – it was just a fishing village, inhabited briefly each year. Perhaps they are right, perhaps there is some underlying problem, I just wish I could help more.”