Dedicated educator receives Senior Fellowship of Higher Education Academy
A senior lecturer at Monash Rural Health in Bendigo, Dr Lisa Hall, has recently been awarded a Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Acknowledging her long career in education and current role providing teaching skills to junior doctors, this internationally recognised achievement is a testament to her ongoing commitment to improving teaching practices.
Prior to commencing with Monash Rural Health, Lisa worked in education for 25 years, including work as a secondary school teacher in central Australia, and ten years teaching in remote Aboriginal communities. This experience led to work supporting Aboriginal teachers along the path to becoming fully qualified teachers, culminating in her PhD research. Led by a desire to share her knowledge and experience further, Lisa joined Monash Rural Health.
Since joining Monash Rural Health in 2020, Lisa has developed a Clinical Teaching and Education Pathway (CTEP) program, which supports doctors to become better teachers. This program was recognised in 2022 with a Dean’s Award for Excellence from the Monash Faculty of Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences. The CTEP program addresses the problem that junior doctors are asked to do a considerable amount of teaching work when in the hospital but are provided with only minimal support to become good teachers.
Dr Hall’s role has also included supporting Year 2 medical students on their rural placement experience, where many get their first taste of rural life and rural medicine. She has also been involved with leading a Monash Rural Health Education Symposium, and research work with the Monash Rural Health clinical simulation centres looking at giving effective feedback.
Dr Hall described the process of preparing her fellowship application as an opportunity to reflect on her whole career and the work and professional learning that have led her to this point in her career working in medical education.
“It was really rewarding to have to reflect on and write my teaching philosophy at this point in time and observe how that has grown over the years since I first became a teacher. I was matched with a mentor who is already a Fellow and that was a good experience too, and I look forward to taking on that role for others now that I am a Fellow.”
In the future Dr Hall hopes to continue to work as an educator and support others to follow her path to HEA Fellowship.
“Throughout my career I have tried to stay true to my passion which is being an educator. I imagine I will just keep doing what I am doing and if I can support other great educators to get acknowledgement of their work through the HEA Fellowship process then I am keen to be involved.”
Dr Tammy Smith, Director of Education at Monash Rural Health offered her congratulations to Lisa on receiving her Senior Fellowship:
“I’d like to congratulate Lisa on receiving a Senior Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy. It is a significant achievement and recognises her ongoing commitment to high standards in teaching and her contribution to education.
A significant percentage of Monash’s HEA Fellows come from Monash Rural Health and we are very pleased to welcome Lisa as the most recent of these. Congratulations once again.”