Medical Education Events
2009 Events
OPME holds a number of events throughout the year. The following events are planned for April - December 2009:
- Leadership in Medicine Day
- Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminars
More information will be available online closer to the event dates.
November Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
November Victor Coppleson Seminar: A state-of-the-art Clinical School building: see for yourself
We are celebrating the last Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education seminar for 2009, by inviting you to come and see for yourself! The November seminar will showcase the new Kolling Building, with a presentation from Prof Michael Field and Dr Kirsty Foster on the design features and state-of-the-art educational functions of the Kolling Building. This seminar also includes a guided tour of the education-related spaces, including the skills and simulation centre.
- Date: Tuesday 17th November, 2009
- Time: 5.30pm-7.30pm
- Schedule:
- 5.30pm – 6.00pm: Refreshments in Kolling building foyer
- 6.00pm - 6.30pm: Presentations from Professor Michael Field and Dr Kirsty Foster outlining the design features and educational functions of the Kolling Building.
- 6.30pm-7.15pm: Tours of the education-related spaces of the building including lecture theatres, tutorial rooms, skills and simualtion centre.
- Venue: Kolling Institute of Medical Research, Royal North Shore Hospital
- Kolling home page
- Fee: Nil
- RSVP: Jacqueline Wells
02 9351 4551
October Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
Writing for the Media
Professor Stephen Leeder
Director, Public Health and Community Medicine
Menzies Centre for Health Policy
September Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
‘Are we there yet? Where is Postgraduate Medical Education heading?’
Associate Professor Tessa Ho
Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching) & Head of the Sydney Medical Program
August Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
‘Migrant and cultural issues in cancer care’, Professor Phyllis Butow, and ‘Genes and athletic performance’, Professor Kathryn North.
‘Migrant and cultural issues in cancer care’
Migrants with cancer are known to have poorer cancer outcomes. Social suffering, language difficulties and cultural factors may all contribute to those poorer outcomes. This presentation will provide a background to these issues, and describe the results of a study aimed to delineate the unmet needs of migrants with cancer from Arabic, Chinese and Greek speaking backgrounds in Australia. In this study, 73 cancer patients diagnosed within the previous three years and 18 carers, who had migrated to Australia and spoke the designated languages, participated in focus groups or structured interviews. The focus groups and interviews were conducted in participants’ own language or English as preferred, audio-taped, transcribed and translated into English and analysed using qualitative methods. Four themes emerged: 1) cultural isolation; 2) language and communication difficulties; 3) interpreter issues; and 4) advice for health professionals. Participants, especially those less acculturated, described feeling alone and misunderstood, failing to comprehend medical instructions, being unable to communicate questions and concerns and a lack of consistency in interpreters and interpretation. Participants provided cogent advice regarding optimal communication with people from their culture. There is clearly a need to develop strategies to increase the cultural competence of care to people from different countries.
‘Genes and athletic performance’
Professor Kathryn North’s research focus is the diagnosis and treatment of inherited neuromuscular disorders. In the process of studying genes implicated in muscle disease, Professor North and colleagues discovered a common genetic variant that influences muscle function in athletes and in the general population. ACTN3 encodes the protein actinin-3, a structural protein found in fast-twitch skeletal muscle fibres (the cells that are required for rapid, forceful movement, e.g. in sprinters and weight-lifters). The ACTN3 gene variant results in complete deficiency of actinin-3 in 16% of human populations – ~ a billion people worldwide.
In a world-first finding, North showed that actinin-3 deficiency is extremely rare in sprint athletes, suggesting that this protein plays a crucial role in the function of fast-twitch muscle fibres, and that loss of actinin-3 deficiency also provides a benefit for endurance performance. The association between ACTN3 and athletic performance has since been replicated by research groups around the world - in Finnish, Greek, American, Israeli and Russian athletes. The effect on sprint athletes is particularly strong: of all Olympic-level sprint athletes that have so far been tested, not a single one has been actinin-3 deficient.
This discovery represents a highly significant finding for sports scientists. But it is also likely to have significant implications for health and fitness in the general population. North's group have now discovered that ACTN3 genotype influences glucose metabolism, and response to changes in diet and exercise - and is likely to have implications for the development of diabetes and obesity, as well as an individual's response to training and activity.
July Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
Why is there a need for health reform? Is it necessary or are we just moving deck chairs?
Professor John Horvath A.O
MBBS, ECFMG, MRACP, FRACP
Abstract
Australia has one of the best health systems in the developed world. If traditional measures such as life expectancy, infantile mortality and survival from key disease such as ischemic heart disease or cancer are used as benchmarks, we are way ahead. However, despite these encouraging statistics, we are in the middle of the most wide-ranging health reforms in the last 30 years.
These reforms may potentially change how health care is delivered. Is all this health reform the new future?
Professor Horvath is the departing Australian Government Chief Medical Officer, National Director of Human Quarantine . He is a graduate of the University of Sydney medical program and a Professor of Medicine at the University. He is active on numerous committees and is dedicated to the health sciences both in Australia and internationally. Professor Horvath joined OPME in 2009 as Professor of Postgraduate Education and Training.
June Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
Can we make smoking history?
Professor Simon Chapman
Can we make smoking history?
Simon Chapman, is a sociologist and Professor in Public Health at the University of Sydney, and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia. He is author of 13 books and major government reports, over 370 papers, editorials and commentaries in peer reviewed journals. His most recent, Public Health Advocacy and Tobacco Control: Making Smoking History was published by Blackwell (Oxford) in 2007.
In 1997 he won the World Health Organisation's World No Tobacco Day Medal; in 1999, the National Heart Foundation of Australia’s gold medal; in 2006 the Thoracic Society of Australia’s President’s Award; and in 2003 he was voted by his international peers to be awarded the American Cancer Society’s Luther Terry Award for outstanding individual leadership in tobacco control. In 2005, his research on the tobacco industry was selected by the NHMRC as being one of its “top 10” projects. In 2008, he received the NSW Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research and the Public Health Association of Australia’s Sidney Sax Medal. He edited the British Medical Journal's specialist journal, Tobacco Control for 17 years (1992-2008) and is now its Commissioning Editor for Low and Middle Income Countries, a role supported by a grant from Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Inaugural Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar
On May 12th the Medical Alumni Association (MAA) and the Office of Postgraduate Medical Education (OPME) launched the Victor Coppleson Continuing Medical Education Seminar series.
Over seventy people were welcomed by the Dean, Professor Bruce Robinson, Dr Paul Lancaster, President of the MAA, and Associate Professor Chris Roberts, Director of the OPME. Distinguished guests included Malcolm Coppleson representing the Coppleson Family.
Dr Paul Lancaster gave an illustrated talk about Victor Coppleson and his remarkable career.
Professor Ian Hickie, Professor of Psychiatry, and Executive Director of the Brain & Mind Research Institute, gave the inaugural lecture on the 'Mental Wealth of Nations'.
The seminar series is designed to offer an opportunity to update knowledge; to learn about current research and other work within the Faculty; and to energise social networks.
Images (clockwise):
Refreshments whilst viewing the Plague exhibition
Dr Paul Lancaster, President of the MAA
Professor Bruce Robinson, Dean, Faculty of Medicine
Professor Ian Hickie, Executive Director of the Brain and Mind Institute
Associate Professor Chris Roberts, Director, OPME