Australian Rural Health Education Network's position on interprofessional education and practice in health care

A/Prof Tony Smith

Australia

I am a radiographer/academic and Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the University of Newcastle Department of Rural Health. I am based in Taree on the New South Wales Mid-North Coast, where I look after undergrad and postgrad students, organise continuing education for clinical colleagues and research rural health and interprofessional workforce issues. I am interested in interprofessional boundaries in rural health care delivery and their effect on service quality and efficiency. The topic of my PhD, which I completed in 2006, was the role of nurse and GP limited license x-ray operators in remote and rural NSW. It was a qualitative study using in-depth interviews of rural radiographers, rural nurses and rural GPs about their experiences and perceptions surrounding limited x-ray licensing of non-radiographers. I also have extensive cross-disciplinary teaching experience in this field. This has led me to explore issues of rural health professional practice and workforce planning. My current area of interest is the boundaries that exist betwwen health professionals in rural practice.

Nick Stone

Australia

Research Fellow & Project Manager- Rural Interprofessional Education Project (RIPE), Department of General Prcatice, University of Melbourne. I'm managing a pilot education research project in Victoria designed to develop a new interprofessional curriculum, starting with rural clinical placements of medical and nursing students. Project website: http://www.gp.unimelb.edu.au/research/ripe Personal research (D. Ed): Identifying elements of and measuring intercultural effectiveness

Rosalind Bull

Janice Chesters

Australia

Janice has broadened her career beyond her PhD interest in rural mental health research to investigate rural workforce issues, theoretical and applied medical education, Indigenous health, rural health in general and health and medical sociology. Janice's teaching and publications have been able to highlight the complexity and diversity of rural places, and to move beyond a paralyzing negativity about rural health to recommend better ways of working with rural people and delivering better rural health services. Janice is currently Associate Professor and Deputy Director at the Monash University Department of Rural and Indigenous Health in Moe Victoria.

Susan Waller

Australia

Lecturer (physiotherapy) Rural clinical division School of Medicine University of Queensland

A/Prof Denese Playford

Australia

I work as medical educator for The Rural Clinical School of Western Australia, reaching academics in 14 widely distributed sites and approximately 90 students per annum, to ensure assessment is standardised, curriculum is well supported, and evaluation is conducted each year.

I am interested in the development of a rural workforce, describing workforce trends, and building local communities of practice. I'm also interested in service learning as a way of engaging medical students' values and transformative learning as a way to change students' perspectives about what's important in their work and life.

Jeffrey Fuller

Australia

Research interests in models of mental health service delivery for rural and remote locations, regional public health planning, service models to deliver high quality health care to minority communities in rural locations (immigrant and Indigenous communities) and the development of academic and practitioner collaboration to improve health care.

- Rural Interprofessional Education Network (RIPEN)