ANZAHPE has always had a strong focus on promoting Diversity and Inclusion but in 2020 we have created a specific subcommittee to ensure we place Diversity and Inclusion at the front and centre of all ANZAHPE endeavours; in our organisation, in our presentations and our messages. 

This is so that we can support and encourage our membership in their workplaces, in their teaching and in their interactions with clients and patients.  We are very aware that enacting inclusion and diversity within ANZAHPE and beyond is an on-going process of continual improvement to which ANZAHPE aspires. 

We are always open to suggestions.  If you want to contribute or comment, please contact anna.vnuk@jcu.edu.au 

Anna Vnuk
Lead, Diversity and Inclusion 

In 2021, the ANZAHPE Prize categories have been revised to encourage and celebrate new and emerging health professional educators and researchers. in 2021, there will be two student prizes and two early career researcher prizes; each prize is worth AU$500. 

1. The ANZAHPE Pre-Registration Student Prize  – for an undergraduate student who has participated in education scholarship or research
2. The ANZAHPE Post-Registration Student Prize  - for a postgraduate student who has participated in education scholarship or research
3. The ANZAHPE Clinical Education Prize – for an early career clinical educator within 5 years of completing their undergraduate or a postgraduate degree and situated within a healthcare practice setting for their educational or scholarly efforts.
4. The ANZAHPE Early Career Health Professions Education Research Prize – for a researcher within 5 years of completing their PhD.

The closing date for prize applications is 28 February 2021. For more information including criteria and application materials, please visit the Awards and Prizes page on the ANZAHPE website.

ANZAHPE also offers three awards. Please consider nominating an ANZAHPE colleague for an award. 

1. ANZAHPE Honorary Membership : Honorary Membership is a prestigious category of membership which is intended to recognise exceptional, sustained contribution and loyalty to ANZAHPE over a long period of time.  
2. The ANZAHPE award: The ANZAHPE Award is available each year in recognition of professional excellence or outstanding achievement in the field of health professional education. The Award may be presented for professional excellence in such areas as health professional education, research, or service to ANZAHPE. 
3. Flinders University-ANZAHPE Award: This award honours an outstanding individual or team that demonstrates excellence in innovative and research informed education for students from health professions to support excellence in the delivery of patient-centred health care.

We thank Australian Medicines Handbook, Flinders University and Prof Richard Hays for their support of the ANZAHAPE prizes.

Deadline for nominations is 30 April 2021.

For more information including criteria and application materials, please visit the Awards and Prizes page on the ANZAHPE website.

Megan Anakin
Hon Secretary, ANZAHPE

ANZAHPE grants are intended to encourage quality research into any issue associated with the education of health professionals. 

In 2021, ANZAPHE is offering up to four Research Grants  for funding up to $5000  each. Priority will be given to projects that can demonstrate a link to ANZAHPE’s strategic priorities, which are to:  

1. Support research and scholarship in health professions education
   
2. Develop national and international networks, partnerships and collaborations
   
3. Provide strategic leadership around key issues in health professions education
   
4. Advocate for equity and justice in relation to health professions education

To access more information about the research grant application materials and process, please visit the Research grants page of the ANZAHPE website.  

The deadline for research grants is 31 March 2021. We encourage anyone interested in applying for a research grant to attend the ANZAHPE professional development event 'Writing a competitive research grant in Health Professions Education' to be held on 11th March 2021. 

Megan Anakin

Hon Secretary, ANZAHPE

I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself and share some thoughts about ANZAHPE and future directions. I have been fortunate to have been recently elected as President of ANZAHPE; a position I will hold until the next AGM in July 2021. This has come about due to recent resignation of Chinthaka Balasooriya, who demonstrated remarkable leadership during his tenure as ANZAHPE President (more about Chinthaka later). 

I initially trained in medicine, and have been fortunate enough to have pursued a career following my passions and vocations. Primary among these is my love of education.  Son of a High School Biology teacher, I have always held a belief, which subsequently developed into a known fact, that education has potential to emancipate, improve and make people healthier. I was a student member of ANZAME (the precursor of ANZAHPE (interestingly ANZAHPE de-differentiated in maturation)), and I have been actively in involved in ANZAHPE the last decade (as a Committee of Management (CoM) member, Vice President and now President). My academic career has always focussed on education, and have been lucky enough have led the Monash MBBS curriculum and been Head of the School of Medicine at the University of Tasmania. 

My take on the challenges of the past year is they are allowing us to concentrate on what is important, and demonstrate our true resilience. The ways that Australia and New Zealand have responded to the pandemic are truly remarkable. While we both possess some natural geographical advantages, they speak to our belief and trust in data and evidence, our commitment to the common good, and probably, despite the way we like to project our images, the fact we are a pretty compliant mob.

In education, I have seen people respond with incredible ingenuity, embrace innovations, and really ask the questions of “what is important, and where is the evidence to support current practices?” Things will inevitably change, and I really hope that we don’t “waste a crisis” to ensure that the “new normal” is an improvement on the old. To keep the cliches going, however, we need to respect traditions and not “throw the baby out with the bathwater”. 

When the ANZAHPE Committee of Management (CoM) addressed the reality of what was happening in 2020, there were two dominant reflections. First, how fortunate we were that we had a firm financial base as a buffer (thanks to previous CoMs, Presidents and Treasurers, and convenors of previous conferences (Julie Ash and Zsuszoka Kesckes, in particular)), and second, now is the time to support our membership. 

To address the first, CoM is being cautious in its budgeting, and is actively looking at ways that we increase our revenue in the absence of a conference. We are particularly thinking about Industry sponsorship, and our Treasurer and Executive Officer (Jo Tai and Jill Romeo) are exploring options.  Any contacts or suggestions from membership will be greatly appreciated. 

ANZAHPE is our membership, and we exist for the single reason of advancing Health Professions Education, through supporting our members. I would like to thank the newly formed Professional Development team (led by Joy Rudland) for the rapid and agile work they have done in developing the PD program for 2020, which I know many of you have enjoyed. PD is an aspect of ANZAHPE activity that will continue, rather than being an activity we get when we come to the conference. I am keen to hear from any members who have thoughts about how we can do things better. 

We have taken the decision to go online for our Conference in 2021, with the possibility of supported local hubs to ensure that the important social and networking functions of a conference are not completely lost. Its theme is “Moving Forward in Ambiguity”, and a call for Abstracts is shortly to be released, with an abstract submission deadline of the end of February.  I would like to take the opportunity to thank Dale Sheehan and her team in Christchurch for all the work they did in preparing for 2021, and the generous fashion in which they have accepted the difficult decision that was reached. We are working with EventStudio (formerly Plevin and Associates) to determine the best platform to support the conference.  More about the conference later. 

Finally, I would like to reflect upon the CoM. They are a great group of people with boundless talent that augurs well for the future of ANZAHPE. We are truly fortunate that Chinthaka has agreed to stay on the CoM, leading initiatives in international relations, in particular with AMEE and IAMSE, but hopefully further. Chinthaka was a wonderful President of ANZAHPE, a tenure typified by his quiet and considered nature, that was always inclusive and focussed on the strategic. He was never afraid to ask the difficult question, and in so doing enabled the rest of CoM to reflect and take tough decisions. I applaud his generous and brave decision to relinquish the presidency. He was wise enough to realise that the pressures of 2020 meant that the “day job” would not allow him to serve his passion fairly.  As one who tends to believe you can just push on, I have much to learn from this action. 

Have a great end of year, and I hope you can get some rest, and spend time with loved ones. I’ll leave you with one of my favourite quotes: 

The reasonable person adapts themself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable person." – adapted from GB Shaw (Man and Superman) 

Be unreasonable, but nice with it!! 

Ben Canny 

President, ANZAHPE

 From the 10^th of November 2020, a change will take place in the leadership of ANZAHPE. After two and a half years as ANZAHPE President, Chinthaka Balasooriya will be stepping down from this role. Ben Canny, the immediate past Vice President of ANZAHPE, has been unanimously elected by the ANZAHPE Committee of Management to take on the role of ANZAHPE President from the 10^th November 2020 to July 2021.

Chinthaka served as ANZAHPE President since July 2018 and guided ANZAHPE through a period of significant growth. The major highlights of this period include: 

1. Expansion of the ANZAHPE research grant scheme with a resultant increase in the number and quality of applications
2. Increase in Annual Conference attendance and resultant membership growth
3. Continued growth of the ANZAHPE Fellowship scheme Signing of two funding agreements with the ‘Securing Interprofessional Futures’ (SIF) project to set up an IPE knowledge repository, to host IPE resources relevant to Australia and New Zealand: https://nexusipe.org/informing/resource-center/anzahpe (Portfolio lead: Margo Brewer)
4. Transition to an updated member management system within a new ANZAHPE website to enable enhanced functionality for networking amongst members. (Leads: Joanna Tai and Jill Romeo)
5. Establishment of a CoM portfolio and subcommittee to focus on professional development, with the ANZAHPE ONLINE program delivering significant benefits to members in 2020 (Portfolio lead: Joy Rudland)
6. Strengthening links with key international associations including AMEE and IAMSE, enhancing our international reputation and leading to a range of mutual benefits. 

Chinthaka worked with the Committee of Management and the Executive Officer to respond to the many challenges of 2020, and to stabilise the position of the association. He will continue to serve on the ANZAHPE Committee for the remainder of his elected term, till July 2022. He will continue to lead current initiatives around international collaborations and will chair the external collaborations subcommittee.

The Committee of Management thanks Chinthaka Balasooriya for his careful, inclusive and generous approach and dedicated service as ANZAHPE President.  Chinthaka’s commitment has been particularly appreciated in dealing with the impact of Covid-19 on ANZAHPE and we are delighted that he will continue as a Committee member. The committee congratulates Ben Canny on his election as ANZAHPE President. ANZAHPE is very fortunate to have a senior committee member with such vast experience to accept the presidency, and look forward to continuing to deliver enhanced benefits to its members.

Click here to read a personal message from Chinthaka.

The October session of ANZAHPE Online was a workshop on writing authentic OSCEs. It was led by Dr Karen D'Souza, Professor Richard Hays & Assoc Prof Bunmi Malau-Aduli, and expertly co-facilitated by members of the Australian Collaboration for Clinical Assessment in Medicine (ACCLAiM). 

Over 60 participants attended the workshop, from all states and territories in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Fiji and Sri Lanka, and a range of sectors including university, hospitals, local health networks, professional bodies, Specialist Medical Colleges and other training providers. 

It was a truly interdisciplinary affair with representation from Dentistry, Diagnostic/Medical Imaging, Health Professions Education, Health Sciences, Medicine, Midwifery, Nutrition and Dietetics, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Optometry, Paramedicine, Pharmacy, Physiotherapy, and Speech Pathology. 

Workshop participants were highly appreciative of the opportunity to share ideas and best practices across settings and discuss some of the complex issues involved in the OSCE process with colleagues from a range of health disciplines and universities. They identified that the workshop helped them to think more closely and critically about aspects such as: design considerations, examiner role, how to better train examiners, and benefits of peer review to ensure quality assurance. 

 ANZAHPE MEMBERS  Click here to access the recording.

Non-members and guests who registered for events, please contact our events team for access instructions.

Building a feedback culture - Professor Chris Watling

In the September session of ANZAHPE Online, Professor Christopher Watling encouraged us to think about how culture imprints itself on learning and teaching processes, specifically feedback. Participants were prompted to consider ‘how deeply rooted health professional education culture is in values and how this influences feedback as a construct and in practice’ and indeed, how this culture is contextually bound. 

This session was a truly globally distributed and virtually connected affair, with 129 participants Zooming in from across Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Fiji, Indonesia, Malaysia, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, UK, and USA. Overall, the majority of participants rated the session a 10 out of 10, and were particularly appreciative of the ‘intellectual breadth and depth of the session’ and Chris’ skills in taking ‘us along a beautiful journey about feedback culture to help us deepen our understanding and change our paradigms’. 

 ANZAHPE MEMBERS  Click here to access the recording.

Non-members and guests who registered for events, please contact our events team for access instructions.

Confronting Contexts - Professor Rachel Ellaway

In the August session of ANZAHPE Online, Professor Rachel Ellaway challenged us to think about context as active, pervasive, and powerful. Contextual competence was presented as an intriguing and thought-provoking lens through which to think about the capacity to adapt to new and changing circumstances. 

The session was attended by over ninety participants from a range of different contexts. The majority of participants rated the session as excellent (60%) and indicated that they would have liked even more time to share and discuss experiences with others. Most were likely to attend future ANZAHPE Online sessions or to recommend to others (70%).  

I hadn’t really thought much about context before, so it was good to get and overview, even to hear key words that I can now go away and find out more about. It was also good to talk to other people and get their views.(Participant) 

Below are Rachel’s responses to several online questions:

Question: Other than asking "Why do you want to work here", what sort of questions can we ask in interviews to select for trainees with contextual competency? 

Answer: A simple one would be to ask 'giving examples, can you describe how you have adapted to new and changing circumstances?'. Look for whether they have had to adapt, how often, to what extent, and how successfully. And then look for how thoughtful and skilled they are at adapting and how aware they are about these adaptations. As with everything, this is about potential - an applicant who has had less opportunity to travel say, may still have developed or show potential for contextual competence in other ways. We haven't done the work yet to establish whether CC is an intrinsic or a developed competence or some combination of the two, but either way it'll have implications for how we look for it. 

Question: I wondered if you had any thoughts about the entangled nature of the things people do with the contexts they exist in? 

Answer: This is what Cole (I think) described as the CHAT interpretation of context - contexts are dynamically created from moment to moment by the interactions of the agents (human and otherwise) within them and about them. Socio-materialist perspectives are intrinsically contextualist and vice versa. People and things are part of the contextual web. However, while SM tends to focus on why things are the way they are, contextualism is more about why and how things change and the cascades of further changes that change triggers. 

Question: How do you think contextual competence relates to the development of self-regulated learning? 

Answer: CC could very reasonably be seen as a dimension of SRL - and could be a useful way of thinking about SRL. CC requires that a person can 'see' their context, that they can perceive its affordances before anything else. From that they need to be able to interpret what they see, predict and plan, and then take whatever action they need to. I don't know whether affordance is a part of the SRL discourse, but the intersection of SRL and CC would certainly raise the opportunity to explore this. 

ANZAHPE members and paid attendees can access the recording of Rachel’s session here.

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are keeping well during these extraordinary times. As the pandemic rages through the world, we continue to do all we can to adapt to this new reality. The global situation continues to be uncertain. While Australia and New Zealand appear to be faring better than most countries, recent events show us that the situation continues to be volatile. This makes forward planning quite challenging. These challenges are shared by many similar associations around the world and this crisis has strengthened our resolve to work together. We are discussing reciprocal arrangements with the Association for Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) and with the International Association of Medical Science Educators (IASME) and look forward to enhancing the range of benefits available to ANZAHPE members. Please keep a close eye on the ANZAHPE website for details of current offers.

I also wanted to reflect on what we have achieved as an association within these challenging conditions. The revamped ANZAHPE research grants scheme attracted over 40 applications, many of which were of very high quality. I want to acknowledge the wonderful work behind these applications and express my appreciation of the high-quality research that is being conducted by ANZAHPE colleagues. I am also pleased to see the significant role that the ANZAHPE Fellowship scheme is playing in the career development of health professional educators. Additionally, I want to note our significant work in the area of interprofessional education (IPE). Further to agreements with the recently concluded ‘Securing Interprofessional Futures’ project, we have developed a knowledge repository which hosts IPE resources relevant to Australia and New Zealand. The repository is now live and can be accessed at: https://nexusipe.org/informing/resource-center/anzahpe.

As many of you would know, the month of July has been a very productive month for ANZAHPE. Thank you to those of you who joined us for the launch of ANZAHPE ONLINE, for the AGM, and for the panel discussion on the Ways of Seeing Exhibition. It has been wonderful to network with you in the virtual world. While we miss the wonderful camaraderie of our face-to-face conferences, the opportunity to meet with you on a more regular basis via our monthly events is a significant positive. I look forward to seeing you at the next event; the keynote by Professor Rachel Ellaway on the 13^th of August. Please remember to register via the ANZAHPE ONLINE webpage.

During these testing times, it is wonderful to note the ongoing support of our members. I thank you for remaining so closely involved with ANZAHPE, during times when each of us are facing our own unique challenges. We remain committed to enhancing the benefits of ANZAHPE membership.  The newly launched professional development program, the IPE knowledge repository and the reciprocal benefits that are being negotiated with AMEE and IAMSE, are examples of how we intend to add value to ANZAHPE membership. We hope that you will join with us to strengthen ANZAHPE as we navigate these uncharted waters.

With very best wishes!

Chinthaka Balasooriya  MBBS PhD FANZAHPE

ANZAHPE President

To help us navigate this difficult time during the COVID19 pandemic, a special resolution approved at the recent AGM allows Carole Steketee and Ben Canny to continue as part of the Committee of Management for 2020/21. We look forward to learning from their experiences and wisdom to make sound decisions on behalf of members. We will appreciate their mentorship as Megan Anakin and Di Eley take on the roles of Secretary and Vice-President, respectively, this year.

About Carole

Carole is National Director of Learning and Teaching in the University of Notre Dame Australia, as well as the Associate Head of the Fremantle campus. In heading up the Learning and Teaching Office, she provides strategic advice, leadership and advocacy in supporting the institution maintain excellence in teaching.

Between 2007 and 2015, Carole was the Associate Dean Teaching and Learning in the School of Medicine Fremantle where she was Director of the Medical Education Support Unit. She chairs the University’s Academic Council, and is the immediate past chair of the Learning and Teaching Committee.

She has held the role of Honorary Secretary for the Committee of Management for ANZAHPE since 2016 and will be stepping down from this role in July 2020. She will, however, remain on the CoM for an additional year as a critical friend; a decision that was made by CoM to ensure stability in the governance of the Association following the COVID-19 crisis.

Carole is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (2018) and has been a partner in a number of national OLT funded projects related to work integrated learning and inter-professional health education. Her recent publications explore the need for good governance as a critical factor in the successful implementation of IPE.

In reflecting on her time as a member of ANZAHPE, Carole believes the Association has been key in helping her build research collaborations across Australia. The highlight for Carole remains the annual conference which has never failed to remind her that there is much to learn from colleagues, both novice and experienced, and that there is much to be gained by listening to others’ experiences as educators.

About Ben

Ben has been a member of the ANZAHPE Committee of Management (CoM) since 2014, and Vice-President since 2015.  He was Deputy Dean (MBBS) at Monash University from 2009-2014, and President of the Academic Board at Monash 2014-2015. 

In 2016, he became Head of the School of Medicine at the University of Tasmania, a position he held until 2019.  He has held a number of OLT grants, and has been involved in Medical School Accreditation, being a member of the Australian Medical Council Medical School Accreditation Committee (MedSAC) in 2018 and 2019.  He is a Fellow of ANZAHPE, and led the Local Organising Committee of ANZAHPE for the 2018 Hobart Conference. 

Ben, like Carole, will continue on the CoM for 2020-2021, performing the roles of Conference Liaison Officer, and chairing the Finance Committee, which will assist the Treasurer and Association in navigating the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.  Ben believes it is essential that the communities of educators that ANZAHPE helps bring together are supported as we negotiate challenges in continuing to train and develop the next generation of health care professionals that we all will continue to rely upon.