“We’re seeing state- and nation-wide shortages across allied health,” says Danielle Ryan, Chief Allied Health Officer. “This new educator program will ensure we continue to support and grow our own people.”
The new Allied Health Workforce Clinical Educators provide needs-led training and education to newly recruited allied health clinicians. The educator program provides a pathway for allied health clinicians to accelerate their learning and build their clinical and education careers with Monash Health.
“The educator program will increase our capacity to meet growing demands for our community, which means we can continue to deliver excellent and timely care to our patients. I also see it as a fantastic career opportunity – we’re growing an education pathway for our clinicians.”
We’re excited to introduce you to some of the team.
“We’re here to upskill and support junior allied health clinicians as they transition into public healthcare.”
Meet Andriel McKay, an Occupational Therapist Workforce Clinical Educator who is also a university tutor.
“It’s been quite a journey since our initial consultations and focus groups with Grade 1s,” says Andriel. “These were brand new roles when we started, and ours for the shaping.”
The Workforce Educators work as a team, led by Sharon Glass, the Allied Health Education Lead, in consultation with our Allied Health leaders across the organisation. They work with their clinical teams and alongside our student coordinators and our graduate program coordinators within the Allied Health WISER Unit to provide best practice learning experiences for all learners, undergraduate through graduate and early career allied health clinicians.
During the consultation phase, Andriel and the team asked early career Allied Health clinicians what kind of education they wanted to receive, and how they wanted to receive it. “We spoke to focus groups to identify what they wanted to learn more about, but we also spoke to managers and Grade 2s for their insight into the kind of education that would be beneficial.”
Now, educators are delivering targeted learning opportunities. “A typical day for me might involve developing education packages and resources or providing tutorials with the new grade ones who have just rotated.”
Andriel also spends time at Community sites being available as required for discussions with the Grade 1 clinicians.
“We speak one-on-one with clinicians to identify their goals.”
Meet Brigitte Lynch, who is one of the Occupational Therapist Workforce Clinical Educators. Brigitte knows firsthand how important mentorship and education can be for career development.
“I’ve received well-targeted and supported clinical supervision throughout my career,” says Brigitte. “I was lucky enough to be offered, or to be able to seek out, a clinical supervisor who met my needs, and I’ve also been part of a mentoring program.”
Guided by the initial consultations and focus groups, Brigitte is helping early career clinicians accelerate their learning. “I’ve been providing education support to help them achieve their learning needs across different areas, as well as putting together some education tutorials to provide additional training about specific topics.
“We also target clinical risk areas for patients, like pressure care”
Brigitte explains that early career clinicians need time to think about their work and experiences. “When you’re being responsive to the patient in front of you, you don’t really have the opportunity for that reflective time. So, when early career clinicians come to talk to me, we can hone in on specific areas and really flesh it out.
“It gives them an opportunity to reflect on the barriers to progressing their clinical justification, or to be able to do what they need to do in their day-to-day role.”
“For some learners, we go through questions like ‘how do I talk to a patient?’ or ‘how does the hospital system work?’, which can be daunting subjects for graduates in their first clinical roles.”
Meet Julie Dziura, another of the Allied Health Workforce Clinical Educators. Julie has enjoyed a variety of roles during her career as an Occupational Therapist since 1989. “Part of what drew me to Occupational Therapy in the first place was that it can be such a varied career. Just saying you’re an occupational therapist doesn’t really explain what you do, because it can be very different depending on the role you’re in.”
Since joining Monash Health in 2003, Julie has worked in senior roles in bed-based, inpatient services based in Rehabilitation and GEM at Kingston Centre. “As a senior clinician, I’ve always enjoyed supporting junior staff, in terms of their wellbeing, but also their development and career. I think that’s what really attracted me to this new educator role.”
Julie believes education is a key skill for occupational therapists to develop. “You actually do quite a lot of teaching in your normal role. We are trying to get people back to what they were doing previously in their occupations and daily lives. So you’re actually teaching the patients and their relatives and carers those skills.”
In her new role as an educator, Julie sees a diverse range of experiences among our new graduates. “OTs require 1000 practical hours before they qualify, but there’s a lot of variety in where our grads do those hours. So we gear our education to the experiences of each new OT.
“For some learners, we go through questions like ‘how do I talk to a patient?’ or ‘how does the hospital system work?’, which can be daunting questions for grads at first.”
Julie also presents hands-on, face-to-face tutorials for the learners. “We’re trying to make them as practical as possible, such as practicing setting up commonly used equipment and pressure cushions.
“Scenarios like setting up a bathseat on the bathtub to see how that works practically, or sitting on pressure cushions, to get a first-hand sense of what they feel like. It helps with their clinical reasoning, and the feedback we’ve received overwhelmingly is that the practical tutorials are really valued.”
“Being a mentor, supervisor, and educator is ingrained in all allied health roles.”
Meet Mahesh Paramasivan, a Physiotherapist Workforce Clinical Educator. Mahesh brings a wealth of experience developed across aged care, rehabilitation and mental health.
“I started here at Monash Health on a four-month contract with Community Rehab,” says Mahesh. “That was back in 2019, so those four months have turned into four years.”
For Mahesh, a career in Allied Health has always included taking on the role of mentor or supervisor to more junior clinicians. “You’re not formally employed as an educator, but you might assist in supervising a student when you’re a Grade 1, and when you become a Grade 2, you’re supervising Grade 1s. Being a mentor, supervisor, and educator is ingrained in all allied health roles.
“It’s great to share your knowledge and pass on your experience, but you also learn a lot from early career allied health clinicians. They are often at the forefront of the latest research as they come out of university.”
Eight months into his new role as a Physiotherapist Workforce Clinical Educator, Mahesh finds no two days are the same.
“It’s fantastic that every day looks different,” says Mahesh. “Since we began, we have evolved and fine-tuned our role.”
“It was great to have these education sessions to boost my confidence and knowledge.”
Meet Sharon Tu, who is a Grade 1 Physiotherapist currently rotating through our Aged and Community Care Program. As one of the learners benefitting from the Allied Health Clinical Workforce Educator initiative, Sharon has enjoyed face-to-face and online education sessions facilitated by Mahesh.
“We have been going through assessments and treatments for certain conditions,” says Sharon. “The presentations have been really interactive and engaging. Mahesh is fantastic at making even dry topics interesting.
“As a new grad, there’s still a lot that we haven’t been exposed to. For example, I did all my placements in the hospital, so coming to Community and dealing with more chronic conditions like low back pain wasn’t something that I felt experienced in.”
“It was great to have the education sessions to boost my confidence and knowledge.”
Now nine months into her role, Sharon feels supported by these education sessions, especially provided by an educator with such a breadth of experience. She looks forward to growing her career with Monash Health.
“The program has had overwhelmingly positive feedback.”
Like Sharon, other learners are full of praise for the program, and so are senior allied health clinicians.
“The program has had overwhelmingly positive feedback,” says Sharon Glass, Allied Health Education Lead. “It’s been a real benefit for our senior clinicians as well, allowing them to focus on top-of-scope work.”
The Allied Health Workforce Clinical Educator program is one of the 10 workforce initiatives withing the first-year of the new Workforce Strategy actions.
We are currently developing our Workforce Strategy 2024-2034 to support our current workforce and develop our people for the future. You can find the latest news about the strategy here.
This year, your answers in the People Matter survey will feed into our future Workforce Strategy actions, so have your say from 16 October.
Approved by Chris McLoughlin, Executive Director People and Culture, and Danielle Ryan, Chief Allied Health Officer
