Bulletin

Issue: October 2004

News

It's compulsory. A new unit teaches all La Trobe Health Sciences graduates: Understand your fellow health professional

La Trobe University is helping the many specialisations within the Australian health care profession to work better together.

The first 400 students recently completed a new subject entitled 'Interdisciplinary Professional Practice'. Compulsory in the final year of the University's eight Health Sciences degree courses, the unit is designed to encourage cross-discipline and understanding among all areas of the health professions.

Dean of Health Sciences, Professor Stephen Duckett, says: 'This is the first time to our knowledge that a university has given health science students the opportunity to acquire in-depth knowledge of important aspects, including the problems, faced by colleagues in other branches of the profession.'

Schools in the Faculty of Health Sciences have worked together for two years to develop the unit.

Senior lecturer in Social Work and Social Policy, Dr Helen Cleak - a members of the co-ordinating committee - says all undergraduate students in health information management, public health, podiatry, orthoptics, prosthetics and orthotics, physiotherapy, social work, occupational therapy, speech pathology and nursing will complete the unit.

They work online in small groups from all health professions, forming their own 'departments' in which they use their skills and knowledge to solve the sorts of problems they will confront when they graduate.

Except for an orientation session, all work is online - making it the largest online subject at the University. Students from the Bundoora and Albury-Wodonga campuses interacted this year, and next year, Bendigo and Mildura students will also enroll.

Dr Cleak says students meet in 'chat rooms' and cover topics such as the structure and funding of the health and welfare system, professional ethics, health-related legislation, professional development, quality improvement in health care, and evidence based practice in clinical work.

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