Griffith University Year 4 Medical Students are placed in the Rural Medical Education Australia Longlook Program. As a continuation of the 3rd year offering, the 4th Year Program takes a longitudinally integrated, patient-centred approach to medical education.
The Longlook program is funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training program.
In our Longlook program students integrate the General Practice, Emergency, Critical care, Orthopedics and a Rural Generalist selective over 28 weeks. All rural students complete an Elective in Block 7 which does not have to be in a rural area.
Overview of the year:
Block 7, 8, 9, 10 & 11
Elective, General Practice, Advanced Rural Selective, EM, CC.
Selectives
Selectives are clinically-based, closely supervised placements which generally allows the medical student to perform in a “junior-intern” role. This is in contrast to the elective which allows a student to pursue an area of clinical interest.
Students will be allowed up to 5 days of clinical attachment, in a rural area, outside of their clinical site as part of their selective rotation. This may be allocated as part of a block (ie 5 days) or as a recurring session (eg 1 day a fortnight). The remaining time will be spent at your site performing the roles of a rural generalist.
Students will be able to nominate one area of interest (eg general medicine) and will need to provide a learning plan including the relevance of the selective to rural health. These applications can be submitted via Learning@RuralMedEd after the second week of the new Block.
Once applications are received, the clinicians supervising the selective will be contacted to organise the logistics of a placement. Please be aware that we are limited by accommodation and clinician availability.
Accommodation
Accommodation is available with a financial contribution from the student, which will be $65 per week in 2023 but will increase to $75 per week in 2024. A comprehensive guide to each site’s accommodation facilities can be found below:
Meet Our Team:
Dr Robert Heffernan is the Clinical Lead for the 4th Year Rural Longlook program. He currently works in General Practice and is the Chair of the Platinum Health Group. Dr Heffernan’s special interests are chronic disease management, mental health and medical education. He authored Griffith University’s Masters of Rural Medicine and previously coordinated the Hub program for RuralMedEd AGPT registrar training. Dr Heffernan is a current member of the RACGP QLD Council and the RACGP representative on the Rural Generalist Advisory Group for Internal Medicine. BSc MBBS FRACGP FARGP Cert FP&SH Grad Cert Clinical Education.
Amanda Ebzery is the 4th Year Longlook Student Coordinator and Coordinates all Student Accommodation bookings and maintenance for RuralMedEd. She works part time as a registered nurse in General Practice. B Nursing.
Dr Luke Dwyer works at Jandowae Hospital and is a General Practitioner at The Wambo Medical Practice. He attained his Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) fellowship in 2014 with advanced skill in emergency medicine. Working across both primary and acute care settings means Luke can provide continuity of care for his patients when they really need him. Luke is passionate about medical education and helping emerging Rural Generalists navigate their own journey and design their own careers.
