Rural community placement program honoured with Dean’s excellence award
After contributing over 4000 hours of community service to the Churchill community annually, Monash Rural Health’s Community-Based Placement Program in Churchill has been awarded the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences’ 2024 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Education: Community Education Programs.
The Community-Based Placement (CBP) program enables first-year graduate entry medical students to learn about social impacts on health in a hands-on way that prepares them to be better informed and compassionate doctors. Students have the unique opportunity to complete 4.5 days of placement at Gippsland health or community organisations across drug/alcohol and violence intervention, aged care, disability, multicultural services, Aboriginal corporations, and primary schools. Throughout the year, the students contribute around 4,000 hours of community service a year.
Associate Professor Margaret Simmons who leads the program reflected on the benefits of the CBP program for students' development.
“The program helps first-year rurally based medical students to understand the social determinants [or the non-medical factors] of health, such as social equity, justice and models of health interventions in the communities they are working, studying and living in. This understanding is vital for providing holistic care in their future medical careers.”
Since the CBP program's inception in 2008, over 40,000 hours of community service have been provided to the Gippsland community, contributing to the work of local organisations supporting the socially and economically disadvantaged communities of Gippsland. Forced to have a hiatus during COVID, the program was reinstated in 2023, the result of hard work by the Churchill professional services team - Natalie Donald, Nicola Epps, Jo Kingsley, Sarah Renn, Kylie Halsall and Krystal Kosakiewicz liaising with existing and new partners to be able to successfully deliver the program. This has provided authentic learning experiences for students that builds their professionalism and cultural competence, as one student explains:
“I am able to better understand non-medical aspects of care in the various organisations and centres that provide services to clients that are beyond the scope of doctors. This provides a holistic care plan for the patient”.
Project partners who receive student placements have experienced multiple benefits from their involvement in the program. These benefits include practical support and building medical students’ and doctors’ appreciation of organisational challenges and their clients’ needs. Principal Anthony Rodaughan from program partner Kurnai College articulated some of these broader benefits.
“The impact of this partnership extends beyond our current participants; it lays a foundation for a future where healthcare professionals are more attuned to the socioeconomic factors that influence patient care and community wellbeing.”
A reflection from Vicki Hamilton, CEO of the Asbestos Council of Victoria highlights the ongoing impact of the program on the future careers of medical students.
“One student I met years after they had been in a placement with us ran into me at a restaurant and introduced himself and said “you won’t remember me but I was in one of your placements and I have never forgotten the valuable information that you gave me and it has been useful. I am a doctor now and I thank you so much for all the dedicated work you do in helping students to navigate these very confronting illnesses and I put the info you gave me to good use in so many ways”.
For the Monash Rural Health Churchill team, the Dean’s Award provides recognition for the outstanding work that has been done by the CBP program in Gippsland and provides encouragement to continue the program in the future. The team are also nominated for a Vice Chancellor's Excellence Award, with the winners announced in November.
“This award will go a long way towards helping us attract project partners in the future and provide many more hours of service to support the Gippsland community and enhance the education and understanding of future health professionals,” said Associate Professor Simmons.
To learn more about the 2024 Dean’s Awards for Excellence winners, visit the website.