Firefront

FIREFRONT

Issue1, 2013

Presidents Report Welcome Wildfire Members to 2013! The year is now well and truly underway and our Council and Subcommittees have been hard at work planning some great events for you all to attend. Keep your eyes peeled for further information.

The year began with a bang with Wildfire running some great O-‐ Week Events at Clayton campus and signing up many new members. We have been running a promotion where all members who sign up to the NRHSN membership database will go in the draw to win an Ipad Mini. Entries are closing soon, so make sure you have signed up!

The Matthew Campbell Memorial Evening was a great success recently, with some fantastic speakers shedding light on rural health from many perspectives.

Wildfire also has a new website up and running. Make sure to check it out for information on signing up, conferences and upcoming events!

Looking forward to a great year, Kate Avery Wildfire President 2013

Council Members 2013

Patrick Lloyd-‐Donald Hi, my name is Pat and I am the 2013 Vice-‐President of WILDFIRE. I am 3rd year and currently terrorising Bendigo Hospital on my first year of clinical placement. My role involves helping out Kate the lovely President, organising events, helping out with sponsorship deals, liaising with the School of Rural health ladies and helping the sub-‐committees. My main role for this year is organising a Rural Clinical Careers joint Seminar with Deakin and Melbourne University in Geelong. This looks to be a great event, with some interesting speakers and a number of Graduate Fellowships/Specialist Colleges offering info on how to pursue MANY specialist opportunities in rural areas. I am looking forward to building on my role as Clayton Co-‐Chair from 2012 and working with the fantastic 2013 council this year.

Alyssa Jemmeson Hi everyone! My name's Alyssa & I'm a 4th year ERC student, originally from Sandy Creek (near Albury-‐Wodonga). I'm the secretary for WILDFIRE this year, so I mainly have an administrative job, taking minutes and answering emails and the like. I'm the one to email if you've got any questions or suggestions for WILDFIRE, so please don't hesitate! [email protected] If I don't know the answer I can make sure that it goes to the right person on Council to help you out.

Sarah Tarrant Hi all! I'm Sarah -‐ the Senior NRHSN Representative for WILDFIRE 2013 -‐ I'm starting Fourth Year of Medicine in Bendigo (my home town). NRHSN or (National Rural Health Students' Network) is our governing body, which also supports 28 other Rural Health Clubs (RHCs) around Australia. I'm in my second year of this role, having been the Junior Representative last year. As a team, the Junior and Senior Reps are involved with making sure that we complete our aims as a RHC -‐ including running Rural High School Visits and ensuring that our members sign up on-‐line on our database. This information is important because it is collated and presented to Rural Health Workforce Australia, who in turn pass the data on to the Department of Health and Ageing. All of the NRHSN Representatives meet up twice a year to exchange ideas on events plus the general running of RHC's and discuss our viewpoints on issues affecting us as health students. We also create and revise formal documents outlining our stance as an organisation on issues, such as our National Priorities Paper. The NRHSN also provides health students with opportunities to attend Conferences of National Significance (CoNS). This provides travel, registration and accommodation subsidies to successful applicants. [email protected] Will Goss

Hi everyone, my name is Will and I am your National Rural Health Student Network (NRHSN) Junior Representative for 2013. As well as having the equal longest title on the council, my role is to help develop, co-‐ordinate and conduct Rural High School visits as well as coordinate our participation in Indigenous Festivals. If you have a Rural High School that you would like to visit, get in touch with me and we can work together to make it as informative and enjoyable as possible.

We have a Rural High School Visit Kit, with fun activities to help get students inspired by the possibilities of the health profession [email protected]

Tom Nicholls Hi I’m Tom, the Publications Representative this year for WILDFIRE. I’m a third year medical student, studying in Bendigo this year, and keen to get heavily involved in the rural health scene. In this position, I am lucky enough to put together these Firefront publications & the annual report at the end of the year, along with helping run & promote events. If you’d like an article that you’ve written on anything rural related to feature in one of the following Firefronts, please send me an email! Keen to hear any of your experiences! [email protected]

Lewis

I’m Lewis, a 3rd year student at MMC and Promotions Rep. As a metro student I am keen to promote involvement in rural and indigenous health and in Wildfire at the metro campuses to ensure that it isn’t an issue lost by the wayside in hospital life. As Promotions representative, I am responsible for making sure that rural health is heard about. I am responsible for promoting the events of Wildfire, the NRHSN, Wildfire members and opportunities available to become involved in rural health from conferences to workshops to scholarships. This is through channels such as Facebook, the Wildfire Website, Moodle, the Firefront, posters, emails and lecture bashing. If you need something promoted, I am the first person to talk to!

Luke Fletcher Hi I’m Luke. I’m in my second year of studying a Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) at Monash University. I’m from Burnie, a small town in Tasmania. As well as my IT responsibilities to WILDFIRE, I am also the IT officer for eSTEEM Outreach, and Communications Design rep for the Mannix College Student Society. In my free time, if I ever have any, I enjoy listening to music and watching movies. I also enjoy swimming and skiing. John May

I’m John, and Undergraduate student (based out of clayton). I’m from a small town (blink and you miss it type small) in western Victoria called Derrinallum. I went to school there and in Warrnambool, in Year 11 I went to Sweden for the year, then I came back for year 12.

Since starting university, I’ve enjoyed my time in Melbourne, and now in Sale, luckily I’ve been able to work with the WILDFIRE rural health club as this years ATSI health rep.

The ATSI health advocates job is to represent the club in any indigenous matters, this include liaising with the NRHSN Indigenous Health Portfolio Holders and working with the other Wildfire Sub-‐committees to organise and run any related event, such as lasts year Cultural Awareness Training and Indigenous Mental Health First Aid. Possibly the largest job to the ATSI health advocate is organising the Matthew Campbell Memorial Evening, which is held close to Easter.

Marcel Boulat Being a sponsorship officer for WILDFIRE offers unique challenges due to WILDFIRE's niche interests and its membership size. Which is why I tried to make my job a bit easier by getting an Ipad Mini from Work the World as a prize for the membership drive. Representing WILDFIRE is quite fun and I strongly encourage all interested students to apply for the role at the next election.

Cameron Sharp WILDFIRE’s been having a great start to 2013. With our sub-‐committees up and running and Matthew Campbell fast approaching the year is set up perfectly to shoot WILDFIRE membership and events to record highs. Already we’ve had BBQ’s, produce tours, Get Plastered and many other events that if I named all of them it would take up way too much of the FIREFRONT.

Anyway I look forward to helping organise many events this year and wish to issue an open invitation to all members to feel free to contact me at [email protected] if they have any questions concerning WILDFIRE for 2013.

Fiona Yeaman Hi I'm Fiona and I'm the Membership Officer for WILDFIRE in 2013. As part of my role I'm responsible for organising merchandise and so far this year we have some awesome USB lanyards, as well as the always handy pen -‐ who doesn't need a free pen? I'm in my final year of Medicine this year, so this will also be my last hurrah with WILDFIRE, so I'm looking forward to a great year! In the past I've been involved with the Mildura sub-‐committee in 2010 and the council member without portfolio in 2012.

Afsin Shariar This is the first time this position has existed on Council, so I’ve pretty made it up as I go! So far I’ve liaised between the Central Wildfire and Gippsland subcommittees, and supported them in planning out the activities and objectives they hope to accomplish this year. Going forward I’ll be involved in the Gippsland Wildfire launch, increasing nursing student involvement and the school visits program in Gippsland.

Emma Sturm Hi! My name is Emma. I’m a fourth year medical student doing my placement in Bendigo this year, through the ERC program. My favourite dessert is lemon slice (for future reference!) and my favourite season is Autumn. I am ALSO this year’s Wildfire MWOP representative! This year I’ll be helping to plan the Annual Dinner, and some other surprise events along the way. My role basically involves supporting the Committee when needed. If you’re cooking up any brilliant event ideas for Wildfire that you’re just not sure what to do with, you’re welcome to run them past me:[email protected]!

Subcommittee Members 2013

Clayton

Co-‐chairs: Jessie-‐Anne Kenworthy and Laura Donaldson Based on Monash’s main campus, we are the main liaison between the WILDFIRE council and pre-‐clinical medicine and other health students. Due to having the largest number of local members, we are looking forward to hosting numerous exciting events throughout the year, including ‘Get Plastered’ (which is coming up on the 15th of April), clinical skills weekend trips to Bendigo, and the annual ‘WILDFIRE Hoedown’ to finish off the year.

Our main aim is to raise awareness of the differences between the overall health of rural and Indigenous communities compared to metropolitan areas; something that can easily be forgotten whilst studying in the city. We feel it is important to support discussion about these issues during the early years of study in the hope of encouraging students to pursue rural placements in their later years.

Committee Members: Treasurer: Kate Johnson Secretary: Bonnie Batton Publications: Lachie Evans ASTI rep: Luigi Zolio MWOPs: Jake Malouf and Michael McConnell First year reps: Viet Nguyen, Duncan Hamilton, Dominic Nowell, and Sarthak Tandon

Parkville President: James White Wildfire Parkville is located at Monash’s faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences in the Melbourne suburb of Parkville. We currently have around 100 members with the majority from the Pharmacy course and a growing number joining from Pharmaceutical Science. Parkville has grown significantly in the past years and has formed several partnerships at the Parkville campus with other associations such as Remedy (International Health Club) and VPSA (Pharmacy Student Association) as well as strengthening our relationship with Monash Parkville Student Union. We are looking to expand on the events we host, including two Rural Road Trips as well as Cultural Awareness Training. Committee Vice-‐President – Louise Rix Secretary – Jess Dayment Tresurer – Steph Morey 1st Year Representative – Adam Segmen 2nd Year Representative – Izzie Telford 3rd Year Representative -‐ Emily Biddiscombe 4th Year Representative – Jane Stephens

Bendigo

President: Grace Andrews

Hi, I'm Grace. I'm the President of the Bendigo Subcommittee of WILDFIRE. It's my job to oversee the organisation of all the great academic and social events that take place in Bendigo. Having lived in Melbourne my whole life, I am loving my year in Bendigo so far and the chance to experience rural medicine first hand. With a great bunch of Bendigo members, we are looking forward to a great year! We’ve got the Bendigo Ball coming up soon and tonnes of fun later on in the year.

Committee Members: Treasurer: Connor Rochford Secretary: Christopher Pring MWOP: Marcus Hall Ball reps: Ellen O'Connor & Kate Genevieve

Mildura President: Stephanie op’t Hoog Committee Members Secretary: Catherine Smale Treasurer: Alba Sanderson MWOP 3rd year: Fleur Muirhead MWOP 4th year: Elliot Anderson Gippsland

Matthew Campbell Memorial Evening The 19th Matthew Campbell Memorial Evening was held this year on April 19th on Monash Clayton campus. Matthew Campbell was a second year medical student who felt that the Monash curriculum had too little emphasis on indigenous health and in response organised an evening to explore the issues around indigenous health. Tragically two days later Matthew was involved in a car crash and since then the event has been held in his memory. Professor Geoff Solarsh, head of the Bendigo rural clinical school introduced the evening and told some of Matthews and his own story and opened the night. Following this Bill Nicholson explained some history of the welcome to country and invited all of the attendees outside to participate in a smoking ceremony. This year’s speakers were: Sam Alexander, a post-‐graduate student from Gippsland, studied biomedical sciences in Queensland and then his honours in medical science in Tasmania before starting post-‐graduate medical school, he spent 2012 riding three horses up the east coast of Australia. He was able to share his experiences of rural and remote Australia.

Dr Elizabeth Wearne, A Monash medical school graduate who is now working in Lakes Entrance in east Gippsland, where she has done a great deal of work with-‐in the aboriginal community. Her inspiring presentation discussed some of pertinent issues all medical graduates will face, along with several pieces of advice aimed at all growing doctors from all communities.

Alba Sanderson, a 3rd year medical student and John Flynn placement program recipient, who spoke about her experiences as a medical student placed in an aboriginal community in the remote northern territory.

Kyle Vander Kuyp, an indigenous Australian and Olympic hurdler. He spoke about growing up as a member of the stolen generation and how his search for his personal identity drove his sport. As well as touching upon his later work as a member of the AIME mentoring team.

Every year at the Matthew Campbell Memorial evening the paddle prize is awarded. The paddle prize encourages participants to develop a piece discussing or exploring indigenous health or health promotion, this year the prompt was: : “’Indigenous Australian health promotion: breaking barriers and changing perceptions’ It may refer to any community from remote Indigenous communities to the cities of metropolitan Australia”. The winner if the prize this year was Julie Halton, with her poem “I am not from the city”, many thanks to all who entered the paddle prize this year, the quality of all entries of excellent. The evening was a success with 60 students and guests attending, and all had an enjoyable evening. A special thanks goes out to Melanie Craig, who up until MCME has been wildfires contact in the school of rural health and has now moved to a new position.

I am not from the City

I am not from the city, But I'm not a world away, My needs are just the same, And yet I hear you say,

I bring ill health upon myself, My cries smothered by urban wealth, Such riches I don't have to share, Housing, schooling and healthcare,

I find my gold in other ways, Through family, land and dreaming days,

My legacy, it must live on, Respect and love should keep me strong,

But it is more than this I need, Not just a roof and mouths to feed, My mind and body needs help too, Both of them, they are the glue,

That helps me cope with so much change, Intent my life to rearrange,

The do-‐gooders I can do without, I want a doctor who is with me, Who knows what it's about,

But people like this are very rare, And when a great one is found,

We all have to share, Why is this so, what have I done, To make this doctor never come? So I medicate in other ways,

Through bottle, drugs and vapour haze, The dreaming is a nightmare now, To find my way, I don't know how, The elders try to bring me back, My mind is just so out of whack, My kidneys fail, I fall apart,

And then it starts to kill my heart, But I can't return, it needs to end,

So I drink some more, too late to send, For help from many hours away,

And so, alone, I die today, And your thoughts are what, another gone?

How sad, boo hoo, let us move on, You really don't know what to do, So let me tell you, this is true,

Change how you think, not way up high, I learn from you, you learn from I,

Don't do things for me, or to me ever, But with me, respect what we have together.

Julie Halton

Bendigo Ball

That’s right it’s that time of year again, whip out those cuffs, polish those shoes, wax those legs…. It’s Wildfire’s Annual Bendigo Ball! This year Avant and Beyond Medical will help Wildfire to present to you the Bendigo Winter Ball with a Shakespearean twist. When you ask? 27th July

Time: 7pm – 11pm

Price: $76

Most importantly where? The beautiful Chateau Dore in Bendigo

The night includes a two course meal and drinks for the night.

Bus tickets available for transport to and from the venue on the night.

Stay tuned for tickets release This is a photo from last year:

Clayton O-‐week Jessie-‐Anne Kenworthy & Laura Donaldson Between the 25th of February and the 2nd of March, WILDFIRE’s Clayton Subcommittee ran a stall as part of Clayton’s O-‐Week. This was very successful in raising awareness of the club and we had a total of 285 people sign-‐up from various courses.

As always, free food proved to be a good incentive for people to join the club. We held a BBQ most days and always had chips and lollies at our stall. The free show-‐bags were a massive hit with pedometers, Cooee magazines, and Wildfire pens and notebooks. They were so successful that we ran out of them within the first day, so then we just displayed the remaining merchandise at the stall and handed it out to those who signed-‐up. Individuals who signed up also went into the draw to win a Gray’s Anatomy Textbook for Students, which provided extra motivation for medical students to join WILDFIRE.

We also held BBQs at the conclusion of the Dean’s Welcome and after Transition Camp, so we were able to specifically promote WILDFIRE to the first year medical students. This was a valuable chance to talk to students that may not have visited our stall throughout the week. Overall it was a brilliant week as it allowed WILDFIRE to introduce itself to both new and returning students. Hopefully these new members will get involved in the club and its events throughout the year.

Parkville Ho-‐down Pubcrawl James White

WILDFIRE Parkville started off the year with a bang with our Ho-‐Down Pubcrawl down Coburg’s famous Sydney Road. The night was considered a huge success and allowed fresh faced first years to meet all the second, third and fourth years and allowed them to create some connections to help them through their First year of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Science.

John Flynn Placement Program / Bonded Support Scheme Info Night Clayton Subcommittee Interested in applying for rewarding and financially supported programs in a rural/Indigenous setting? Then hopefully you attended the John Flynn Placement Program (JFPP) and Bonded Support Scheme information night on the 6th of March at the Monash Clayton Campus. The night was a fantastic chance for first year and second year medical students to hear about some of the extraordinary opportunities that they could be a part of, including how to apply and what to expect. Alyssa Jemmeson, Jessie-‐Anne Kenworthy, and Johnson Ja, were brilliant speakers and all had a different story to tell about either the JFPP or Bonded Support Scheme. Overall the event was a great success, with many people expressing interest and being eager to learn more about the programs. The night would not have been able to go ahead without the support of our sponsors, without them, knowledge about such fantastic opportunities wouldn’t be available.

National Rural Health Conference, Adelaide Tom Nicholls

Attending the National Rural Health Conference from 6-‐10th Arpil was an exciting experience. The speakers covered a broad array of rural health issues, with a focus on policy reform and progress, to target an audience from all walks of life. Andrew Laming, the Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Health Services and Indigenous Health, engaged us early on with his overview of rural healthcare issues & solutions, from a political perspective. An important motif that circulated throughout the conference was that everyone knows the problems – we need to focus on the solutions. The responsibility of the audience was to help construct recommendations to parliament that arose from the conference. The priority recommendations can be accessed here: http://nrha.ruralhealth.org.au/cms/uploads/publications/priority%20recommendations%20on%20website.pdf Some of the recommendations included: broadband networks, indigenous eye health, maternity care, telehealth etc Jane Hall shed some light on economics in the world of rural health. She stated that “economics is the study of choice in the face of scarcity.” Managing funding for rural health is difficult as resources are so few that choice becomes a challenge. On another hand, our health system is one of the most expensive in the world and it is our own fault for making it so good! She went on to question the validity of the continued focus on paying for face-‐to-‐face consultations (a

concept which was put in place in the early 1900s) when telehealth and social media is growing. Are there other options for a more cost effective system? The concurrent sessions proved to be likewise very useful. On the Monday, most of the students attended a session that focussed on medical student interest in rural health. What struck me was that rural focussed streams don’t necessarily affect rural workforce choices. It seems perhaps more important to also offer specialist training in rural areas – as young doctors are more likely to stay if trained formally in the area. That is not to say that targeting medical students doesn’t work – JCU has shown that it can be done successfully. I encourage students to apply for the National Rural Health Conference in the future as it is an informative experience, and one that you can receive funding for through CoNS, NHRSN. http://www.nrhsn.org.au/site/index.cfm?display=39664

Territory health – what a blast Marcus Hall Posted on December 7, 2012 by rhwa By Marcus Hall, second year medicine, Monash University

It was the third day of our Go Rural “City to Centre” trip and I was excited about what lay ahead. We headed off early to Santa Teresa, an Indigenous community about 80km from Alice Springs. Upon arriving at the local health clinic we soon realised this place was quite special and had a bunch more facilities than any other we’d visited.

I found it very interesting to see the contrast between the health facilities at Santa Teresa and Hermannsburg, which has a larger population by about 200 people. From talking to the Santa Teresa health practitioners it became apparent that distance from a regional centre, such as Alice Springs, plays a big part in determining access to healthcare. I was also interested in hearing about the local GPs and the constant turnover of locums servicing the clinic and just how rare it is for a GP to stay for longer than a year at remote community health centres in the NT.

After looking around Santa Teresa and admiring the beautiful artwork at the church, we hit the road again, this time for the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Alice. At the RFDS we were informed of the services provided, checked out one of their aircraft and I was lucky enough to have a couple of oxygen pipes stuck up my nose – a favourite past-‐time of mine! (see photo)

Visiting the RFDS was a great learning experience for me as I had heard a bit about them but never had a clear idea of the services they provide. Hearing that their coverage of service is roughly 7.3 million square kilometres really put it all into perspective and emphasised its importance.

Following RFDS was a visit to Alice Springs Hospital, home of the world’s largest dialysis unit. Was lucky enough to have a talk with Maggie, a medical training officer, who provided a lot of insight into the career possibilities and outcomes as a medical practitioner in Alice Springs. I learnt a lot from this discussion and had many questions answered, all of which made Alice Springs seem exactly like what I’m looking toward in my professional career.

To top it all off, we had a swim in a local gorge – making it one pearler of a day. Thanks to D and Jo from NT Medicare Local for making it happen.

FOOTNOTE: The Go Rural “City to Centre” visit was organised by NT Medicare Local in partnership with Rural Health Workforce Australia. Find out more about the Go Rural Australia campaign at www.rhwa.org.au/gorural http://ruralchampions.govspace.gov.au/

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