PHD Students
| Current OPME staff projects include: | |
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| Interdisciplinary teamwork in research: what are the experiences of collaboration across disciplines? |
Current OPME staff projects include:
Interdisciplinary teamwork in research: what are the experiences of collaboratin across disciplines?
Researcher: Koshila Kumar
Researchers, academics, and health professionals across various disciplinary, professional, and institutional backgrounds are increasingly working in teams and collaborating on joint, coordinated research programs. This study explores the experiences of researchers working in interdisciplinary research teams, particularly in terms of how they manage the process of interdisciplinary collaboration and associated challenges. The study will also investigate team members’ conceptualisations regarding resilience and their interpretations of how resilience may be reflected within interdisciplinary teams in the academic research environment. There is a particular focus on the interdisciplinary experiences of researchers in the broad areas of Public Health, Allied Health, Health Services, Health/Medical Education, and Social Sciences research fields. It is anticipated that research findings will inform our understandings about the intricacies and complexities of interdisciplinary collaboration and team work in research, and will lead to improved theoretical understanding about how resilience is interpreted and reflected in the academic research environment. Findings will be used to inform a professional development framework for researchers including health professionals, academics and others working in interdisciplinary research settings.
See Koshila's Staff Profile
Current OPME student projects include:
Factors influencing the development of professional behaviour in doctors
Researcher: Kirsty Foster
Kirsty is a doctor with eighteen years of clinical experience as a general practitioner in Edinburgh, Scotland. With 18 years of experience introducing medical students and GP registrars to clinical practice and five years of developing and teaching course for health professionals on the Postgraduate Board of Medicine program in Edinburgh, Kirsty chose to develop her medical education expertise when she and her family migrated to Australia in 1998. She assisted in the development of the Perinatal and Women’s Health Rotation of the USydMP and worked for seven years as Postgraduate Medical Educator in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on a variety of local, statewide and international educational initiatives. Kirsty holds a Masters of Education (Adult Learning and Global Change) and embarked on PhD in Medical Education in February 2006 under the supervision of Professor Chris Roberts and Dr Patricia Lyon of OPME. Her qualitative research study is exploring factors influencing development of professional behaviour in doctors. Kirsty is currently Senior Lecturer in Medical Education at the Northern Clinical School of the University of Sydney.
This aim of this research is to :
- To explore the factors which influence the development of professional values and behaviour in doctors looking particularly at the impact of experiences during early clinical training
- To unravel the complexity of the many different educational influences on doctors’ professional behaviour to tease out the common threads which have most impact generally
This is a qualitative study started in February 2006 using a grounded theory approach and the process is, by necessity, iterative. Data is being gathered in the form of guided narratives from senior doctors. Doctors from several different specialties have reflected on their own personal and professional development as a doctor and the people and events which have shaped their professional behaviour.
An emerging theme from the preliminary analysis is ‘dealing with emotions’ as a student or trainee within the clinical area. This appears to have a strong impact both in the context of the student / patient relationship and the student / senior doctor or nurse relationship. The next phase of the research will, focus on the emotional and social aspects of learning professionalism in a complex clinical environment and will include medical students and junior doctors in the study.
Value adding, best models and cross cultural challenges for tertiarty service providers: An action research case study of the Saudi Arabian Health Science Project and the University of Sydney
Researcher: Judith Amed, B.Ed M.Ed University of Sydney
At present Judith is on leave as a secondary Deputy Principal for an independent private college. As well as being a passionate educationalist with a wide variety of teaching experiences, Judith has held managerial positions in private and corporate business. She worked as an Education and Corporate Consultant and was a General Manager for a multi million dollar company. The inclination to choose a PhD research on the Saudi Arabian project was influenced by her extensive experience with Islamic communities. Optimistically a greater cross cultural appreciation and understanding of Muslim students, both international and local, can be achieved as a result of her findings.
With the expansion of globalised education, Judith hopes her findings will also increase collaborative reflection by tertiary services providers to enhance best practices and models.
About the project
Under the project management of DianeĢ Rank, the University of Sydney recently secured an undergraduate scholarship program agreement with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The program offers coursework in English for academic purposes and tertiary preparation before student are assessed to enter undergraduate Medical and Health Science courses at the university. The pioneer group in 2006 commencing with 60 scholarship students and was so successful that interest has expanded and the program is receiving an additional 200 students this year.
As part of the King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Scholarship program, the Saudi Arabian government sent 7,000 undergraduate students abroad in 2007 aimed at increasing its national’s standard of international education. With Australia receiving 1,200 scholarship students this year, research on international students from the Gulf region is of significant market value as well as having unique cross cultural challenges that have not been widely examined.
With the growth in globalisation of education and that the Saudi Arabian government holds a significant role; my PhD research will be tracking the progress of the 2006 and 2007 scholarship program cohort to enter this domain. Cross cultural challenges will be ascertained through action research, providing recommendations to strengthen staff and student working relations, the scholarship process, pedagogical differences, curriculum development and program evaluation, aimed to enhance the sustainability and quality of experiences for all stakeholders.
How Work-based Assessment Can Improve the Quality of Primary Health Care Services
Researcher: Nur Afrainin Syah
Nur is a lecturer in the school of medicine at Andalas University Padang, West Sumatera Indonesia where she is involved in curriculum and student assessment development, and also a generalist physician. Nur's research interests are teaching, learning, and assessment in medical education.
About the Project
Nur is exploring how Work-place Based Assessment (WBA) can improve the quality of primary health care services by measuring the clinical performance of solo generalist physicians in Indonesia and providing timely feedback. Solo practice generalist physicians provide the majority of primary health care in Indonesia. Lack of peer interaction may lead to poor performance in some of these physicians, which could compromise patient care. A structured approach is needed to ensure such physicians have appropriate scientific knowledge, clinical skills and professional behaviours.
Firstly, qualitative data will be collected via interviews and focus groups to gain physicians' experiences in assessing and maintaining their own performance and their perceptions about indicators of good clinical practice. Then, findings will be used to inform the development of WBA tools which will be piloted for psychometric analysis. It is anticipated that this study findings will inform the development of health care in Indonesia.
Improving Men's Health Screening Practice Among Malaysian Primary Care Doctors
Researcher: Sengfah Tong
Sengfah graduated from the University of Malaya with the Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery in 1997. Subsequently, he served under the Ministry of Health Malaysia as a medical officer until 2000 before embarking on a master program in the National University of Malaysia. Sengfah finished his training in 2004 as a family physician and became a lecturer in the Department of Family Medicine, National University of Malaysia. His research interest is in the topic of health screening and health promotion practices among primary care doctors. Sengfah has also participated in a few projects on chronic disease management and community men's health survey.
About the Project
Sengfah is currently enrolled as a PhD student in the Discipline of General Practice with the research topic of "Improving men's health screening practices among Malaysian primary care doctors."
Factors influencing learning behaviour and development of professionalism in pathology
Researcher: Wendy Pryor MB BS FRCPA
Since 2008, Wendy has been Director, Education for the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and an adjunct senior lecturer at OPME. She has worked as a clinical specialist pathologist and taught medical students in microbiology for over 20 years. Wendy is concerned that pathologists are often negatively stereotyped by members of the health professions. Because pathology is a hidden specialty, many patients do not understand the roles of pathologist. These factors can lead to problems with recruitment of trainees, insufficient funding for pathology services and training, and suboptimal communication with clinicians that may compromise patient care.
About the Project
In 2006 Wendy became involved with the evaluation of a Learning Diary, a form of portfolio designed to address professionalism in pathology training. Qualitative data arising from this evaluation revealed some interesting and sometimes disturbing factors about the way that pathologists are trained with respect to development in their broad professional roles. Wendy is studying textual data from the evaluation from a phenomenological perspective.
Wendy has found that the training program in pathology, with many difficult summative assessments focussing on knowledge and technical skills, deflects attention from teaching and learning in the broad professional roles. Many trainees are overwhelmed with work and exams. They identify with the negative stereotype and are reluctant to engage in reflective learning about professionalism. The Learning Diary was an unsuccessful attempt to break this vicious cycle. Wendy is proposing a new model to support self-regulated learning and assessment that she anticipates will inform improved practices in pathology specialist training.
Can medical simulations recreating the scenario of a medication error; be used to assess the communication skills of final year medical students
Researcher: Dr Stuart Lane
Stuart graduated from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (UK) in 1997, and pursued a career in Intensive Care Medicine. At present he is a Senior Lecturer in Critical Care at the University of Sydney, and a Staff Specialist in Intensive Care Medicine at Nepean Hospital, Sydney. Stuart has over 10 years experience of working with critically ill patients, and communicating with families when they are at their most stressed. He embarked on his PhD in 2008 under the supervision of Professor Anthony McLean, and Professor Chris Roberts. One of his research interests in the use of Medical Simulators in medical education.
About the Project
There is a growing body of evidence that simulation provides a safe and effective means to educate and evaluate practitioners in a wide variety of human endeavours outside healthcare, most notably high hazard industries such as aviation and nuclear power. Partly in recognition of these findings, health professional education has developed an increasing for the use of simulation to provide safe, controlled, learner-centred practice opportunities for students, trainees and clinicians to undertake routine and non-routine training. Medication errors are disturbingly common within hospitals, with some studies quoting rates up to 67% of patients admitted to hospital being exposed to a medication error.
Stuart's project is to create a tool that will asses the communication
skills of medical students, before the begin their clinical careers. By
creating and validating a bank of OSCE scenarios, based on a medication error which could potentially lead to patient morbidity and mortality, students will have to perform as part of team to try and resuscitate a low-fidelity mannequin. Based on the results of their efforts, they will then have to meet a family member (played by an actor) to convey the situation of their family member. These interactions will be analysed to assess the students communication skills. The medication error simulation will increase the activation level of the participants, making the experience more realistic, thus giving a more true reflection of their level of expertise.