As you will see from our strategic plan (opens in a new window), we aim to "work collaboratively", so we are building this webpage to bring you information about us and to provide you with contact information so that you can contribute your ideas and input to our work.
Now in our tenth year of operations, our growing team leads a wide range of teaching and research activities.
Our Year 5 General Practice curriculum is running well in both Urban and Rural sites. We are fortunate to have many GP supervisors who provide quality teaching and are inspiring role models for our students. In 2019 with support from the School of Medicine as we transitioned to an MD graduate qualification we introduced one year GP placements (half a day a month) for students in Years 1 and in 2020 also those in Year 2 . This has been a stretch for our committed GP supervisors as well as our Admin team but all feedback indicates it has been a resounding success! We continue to offer placements also in Year 3 (Medicine in Context) and the Year 5 teaching program. My thanks go to Winston Lo, Lawrence Tan and Miriam Brooks who are our curriculum leads.
As you can see from our General Practice Research, we are engaged with a wide range of research activities. The key focus of these activities is to improve the health of the communities with whom we work, including through improvement of student learning about primary health care in these communities. We are keen to partner with others, particularly community groups, to build our capacity to find answers to important health and educational questions.
Penny Abbott and Steve Trankle provide the impetus for many of our research activities. We also value the contributions of Robyn Walsh, Jessica Armstrong- Kearns and Nicole King who work on our two NHMRC funded clinical trials on ear health with urban Aboriginal communities. Christine Metusela leads our work on development of indicators of high quality in Australian general practice.
Sharon Lawrence takes a lead role in student placements and Vicki Bradley manages assessment as well as assisting with general administrative duties.
We look forward to continuing our work with the communities of Greater Western Sydney, Bathurst and the Northern Rivers. We invite you to keep up to date with our activities by reading our newsletters and to contact us at any time with your input and ideas.
Jenny Reath
(Chair of the Department of General Practice)