15 March 2013

Thirty four Masters in Clinical Psychology students commenced their placement in the UC Psychology Intern Clinic recently.  They will be working directly with clients and facilitating group programs.  The UC Clinic  is now recognised in the community as an important resource for many people who require psychological assessment and intervention; it is pleasing indeed  to see the way the student clinic has developed over the past 4 years.

Feb 2013

UC Health received considerable media coverage in the Narooma News--  the University of Canberra’s Mobile Health Clinic was in Narooma offering free consultations to people in the fields of pharmacy and nutrition.  The Mobile Health Clinic provides the opportunity for final year students to gain experience in their field of expertise before finishing their degree while providing treatment and care for patients who may have limited access to some health services. The mobile clinic is staffed by students and their qualified professional supervisors. Students spend 20 weeks in total doing clinical placement.  While the mobile health clinic was here the students had the opportunity to spend time at the Lighthouse Surgery, visit Bermagui on Thursday morning and spend time in some local pharmacies.

1 May 2012

This week we received the very welcome news that our collaborative HHF4 bid (Health and Hospitals Funding Round 4) had been successful.

The collaboration is led by Southern General Practice Network (soon to be the South-East Medicare Local), in partnership with ANU and the University of Canberra. It provides infrastructure (largely physical but some relating to e-health functionality) funding for clinical consulting rooms, group rooms, student-led clinics and simulated learning environments, in places which are in close proximity to local hospitals. The sites are in Bega, Moruya and Cooma and include accommodation for students (and on occasion staff) who are working in the region. The synergies among clinical service delivery, clinical training and research are a key.

The Federal Minister for Health and Ageing Tanya Plibersek announced the $31 million to fund new health facilities in personal media stops at Moruya, Bega and Cooma on Tuesday. These facilities (as they are purchased and built) will provide a valuable base for the high quality clinical training we are doing in the region, as many of our regional sites are not well equipped with teaching and training rooms, or low cost accommodation.

3 May 2013 

UC Nursing Society helped fight against cancer as one of the top ten highest fundraising teams in the 2013 ACT Relay for Life held last month.  The student society raised $5,636.50, the seventh highest fundraisers out of 167 teams who took part in the 24-hour relay. The event aims to raise funds for cancer research, celebrate those who have survived cancer and to remember those who lost their battle.  UCNS secretary Georgie Holmes said nursing student team was surprised to have more than doubled their initial fundraising goal of $2,500.
“We were very surprised that we raised so much money, especially in our first year of taking part in Relay for Life. We had some very generous fundraisers, they helped us a lot and we are so grateful for all of our donations,” Ms Holmes said.

19 April 2013 

The CHART National Aged Care Conference was held at UC. This was a very well attended event with a terrific program of speakers – thank you and congratulations to Laurie Grealish and her colleagues for the great work being done in this collaborative and innovative project.

15 March 2013

Congratulations to Marjorie Atchan who has been elected Chair of the Australian College of Midwives Baby Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) Advisory Committee.  This group manage all BFHI accreditations in Australia (among other things). Marjorie's peers inside and outside the University hold her in high esteem and I know that she brings a wealth of knowledge and passion to the role. 

15 March 2013

Josie Reeves, a second year OT student has been published in the Journal of Occupational Science.  This was from an assignment last semester.  The top three essays were submitted; one student has signed a copyright form and the other submission is still under review.  Congratulations to Josie and her fellow students.

18 February 2013

Congratulations to three students in the Masters of Occupational Therapy program who have received awards for their entries in the ACT Government's Life's Reflections competition. The Prize and Awards Ceremony, held at the Canberra Museum and Gallery on 18 February, was opened by Minister for Ageing, Shane Rattenbury MLA. Associate Professor Alison Wicks also received an award, for Outstanding Contribution. In her unit Occupational Therapy for Older Adults, students completed an assessment task which involved submitting some photographs to the Life's Reflections competition. A total of 42 photographs from UC students will now be displayed in the Glass Floor Exhibition space at the Canberra Centre from 24 February to 3 March.  Sarah Reid and Melanie Waite received commendations in the age friendly city category and Jung Chung won third prize in the open category.

 14 February 2013

We received excellent informal feedback on the Master of Occupational Therapy accreditation visit. We already hold provisional accreditation, but this next stage of accreditation was required for our first graduates  (completing in Sem 1 2013) to be registered as occupational therapists. The formal letter is ‘in the mail’ and we expect some conditions as is normal for a new program.  The Accreditation team were very positive about quality of the teaching team, our sessional staff, the support from the Faculty, the resources and infrastructure available (including the Teaching and Learning Centre).

15th February 2013

Head of Discipline Professor Greg Kyle recently has three additional stories appearing in the Canberra Times:

• New Degree just what the doctor ordered
• 'Remove the grey area in sports medicine': UC Pharmacy Head
• Chemicals offer ray of hope to sun worshippers
  

1st February 2013

Earlier this month, Prof Gabrielle Cooper, Dr Greg Kyle and Sheryn Ringland hosted 32 Year 12 students as part of the National Youth Science Forum. The students learnt about pharmacy practice at UC and made creams in the pharmacy practice labs. Many were keen to keep UC in mind for their future university. And while on th topic, we have now 26 acceptances for the new B Pharm; a good outcome given the very late accreditation approval we received in December 2012.

9 November 2012

Record snow season for SouthCare helicopter team For those that missed Gordon Waddington on the big screen, ABC TV aired a research story on snow injuries during the Australian snow season.

3 May 2013

Vivienne Lewis submitted an ACT Women’s Grant application for $25,000 on the promotion of positive body image in Women in the ACT and her book ‘Positive Bodies: Loving The Skin You’re In’ featured in the May edition of Good Health.
Psychology Clinical Masters students are running the second round of their very successful group programs for members of the community: Cool Kids, Insomnia Group and Tuning Into Kids.  The students are very enthusiastic and the participant evaluations from the first round were very positive.  As well, the students are about to start a Schema Therapy program under the supervision of Bruce Stevens.

15 March 2013

Dr. Vivenne Lewis was invited to speak at Canberra Boys Grammar on body image recently.  She also joined ABC Radio’s Glen Bartholomew in a discussion on eating disorders… listen here.
The Mobile Health Clinic continues its travels around the South Coast.  More news from the Mobile Health Clinic.

9 November 2012

Joan Corbett is promoting a “twilight event” in November on behalf of PANDSI – Post and Ante Natal Depression Support & Information Inc in Canberra as a volunteer member on the Board of Management. The event has an opening address by Kate Carnell, CEO of Beyond Blue and a speech by Dr Megan Galbally, Chief Investigator of the Mercy Pregnancy Emotional Wellbeing Study. It will be a great evening at $80 including dinner. Proceeds go to PANDSI’s program of local support and information. You can obtain more details or RSVP for the event through the link in the Twilight Seminar flyer.

20th to 22nd February

We hosted the first Faculty Residential Research School of 2013 for our HDR students (thank you to Dr Gylo Hercelinskyi), and celebrated the commencement of the Nurse Practitioner (Research) Professional Doctorate at UC  with an event to welcome the first cohort of students into the program. Dr Jan Taylor gave a wonderful talk reflecting on her personal research journey, and we thank Professor Nick Klomp for opening the event with both enthusiasm and insights in to the doctoral experience.

Better Balance for Australian Ballet School Dancers

UC Researchers collaborating with colleagues from Victoria University and the Wingate Institute in Israel are working with the ABS to reduce lower limb injury in ballet. Previous research by the UC members of the group has developed new tools for assessing proprioception which is the body's sense of movement. This new technology has been shown to be able to predict who is more likely to get injured in sport and movement related activity. The project team are using a UC developed tool to measure how sensitive dancers are to detecting small dynamic movements of the foot and ankle.  This work particularly focusses on the effects of footwear in insulating the body from information about the surface that an individual stands on. Poor movement sensitivity has been shown to result in more chance of movement errors resulting in a loss of balance and higher injury risk. The current project will use the new testing approach to look at the possibility of improving information that the dancer receives through the ballet shoe (the design of which have remained unchanged since the 1600s!) by changing the texture of the inner lining of the shoe with specially developed inserts.   In pilot trials Janet Karin from the ABS reports that the dance students have found the new inserts "extremely effective" for increasing the sense of movement control in the lower limb during dance training.

Research Week From 20 – 22 February 2013

The Faculty will be holding it's the first Research Week for 2013 from 20-22 February. The research residential school will again feature the work of our Higher Degrees Research Candidates and guest speakers from around the ACT and nationally. The event will be themed using the Faculty's three research themes which are:

• Better care in and between services
• Healthy and sustainable communities
• Keeping people healthy across the lifespan