Innovative teacher training for doctors recognised with Faculty award
Dr Lisa Hall has been recognised with the annual Dean’s Awards for Excellence - Industry and Community Education Programs for developing a new program designed to improve rural doctors teaching skills.
“The rewarding thing about winning this award is that it reinforces how my background as a teacher and my previous work in rural and remote education is now supporting the field of rural medical education,” said Lisa.
Dr Hall's work in developing the Monash Rural Health Clinical Teaching and Education Pathway, has strengthened the capacity of registrars working within regional health services to provide teaching and supervision. After a successful pilot run with Bendigo Health in 2021, the program is now being rolled out to health services across the Monash Rural Health footprint.
According to Dr Hall, “Throughout a doctor’s career, they will be required to teach many medical students and trainee doctors, but often they don’t get offered the chance themselves to learn how to do this well. We wanted to help doctors develop these skills practically and locally, as well as giving them the chance to explore if it was an area of professional interest they would like to develop further.”
“It is wonderful to see how transformative it can be for my colleagues and the students learning and working in this field to engage in deeper understanding about educational approaches to training doctors.”
With trained medical professionals in rural areas often in short supply, this award recognises the importance of this much needed program to build quality clinical teaching skills for the future rural health workforce. This year, almost 60 rural doctors from across Bendigo, Gippsland and Mildura completed the first stage of pathway.
Dr Hall joined Monash Rural Health in 2020, with a strong background in education focused on regional, rural and remote communities, and is currently the Senior Lecturer of Education and Evaluation at Monash Rural Health Bendigo.
The full list of recipients can be viewed on the 2022 Dean’s Awards for Excellence website.