Seven Grants were recently awarded to individual specialists practising in remote Australia to support access to CPD activities. These Grants will be used by the successful applicants to support participation in various CPD events including up skilling activities, clinical attachments, and attending College Congress events.

The SSRS is now pleased to announce that a second call for Grant applications of up to $5,000 is now open.

The eligibility criteria for these Grants was recently reviewed by the SSRS Program Management Committee and these Grants are now available to isolated specialists living and practising in RRMA classified Rural Zones 2 or 3 or Remote Zones 1 or 2.

Please click here to access a copy of the Application Form and Guidelines along with a comprehensive list of towns and regions which fall into these Rural and Remote Zones.

Applications must be forwarded to respective Colleges for endorsement by 5pm April 30th, 2008.

The Royal Australasian College of Medical Administrators is currently implementing the Project titled ‘Increasing resilience through productive reflection’.

In our busy schedules we often have to make an effort to create “time to think”. This reflective space as we will call it can be a rich time of analysis and professional and self reflection which can greatly benefit our professional and personal lives.

The creation of resilience by nurturing and utilising the benefits of reflective practice is a concept that is being investigated by medical manager facilitators with groups of rural practitioners in rural Australia.

The benefits of applied learning with a focus on reflective practice include an increased resilience for medical practitioners, especially if they are physically isolated from colleagues. The concept is being explored and documented in a way that creates a new approach to dealing with the specific needs and demands of rural specialists in Australia.

Participants in the project are involved in a preliminary one-on-one discussion with the project consultant and then a group workshop. Two workshops (Shepparton Victoria and Albury NSW) have already been held yielding encouraging early results.

Further workshops are planned in the upcoming months for Gladstone (June 12, 2008), Tamworth (date TBC), Alice Springs (May 14. 2008), and possibly Darwin (date TBC).

If you are interested in participating in this training program, please contact Dr Alan Sandford alan@sandford.com or Dr Karen Owen at RACMA kowen@racma.edu.au .

Planning is currently underway for the 2008 SSRS Forum, which will this year be held in Melbourne at the Airport Hilton Hotel on Friday July 4th, 2008.

The Forum will showcase current Projects funded under the Scheme and support participants to reflect upon strategies for Specialist Medical Colleges to collaborate around the delivery of CPD and support for specialists practising in rural and remote Australia.

Around 50 people are expected to attend, including Specialist Medical College representatives, rural Fellows, and representatives from the Department of Health and Aging.

Registration forms have been sent to all Specialist Medical Colleges.

Addressing the issues around severe workforce shortages in rural health is an issue that requires addressing on many levels.

In 1994, Latrobe Regional Hospital reached a major crisis with only one psychiatrist and a large number of vacancies. This prompted an internal review in 2006 of psychiatrist recruitment and retention over the past 10 years to gain a better understanding of approaches that worked, those that could be improved and those that required further development and implementation.

This article, published in Rural and Remote Health, looks at how a successful program transformed a region from one shunned by psychiatrists to one which was highly attractive and that proved its ability to attract and retain these scarce specialists.

http://www.rrh.org.au/articles/showarticlenew.asp?ArticleID=824