The Education Hub - Teach Think Treat

In this episode, two clinician educators, Michelle Rutherford (Director of Nursing Education) and Wonie Uahwatanasakul (Director of Medical Education), describe their pathways in clinical education. Join us to hear their insights and experiences — and find out whether a future in clinical education might be right for you.

In today’s episode, we welcome Michelle, Janine, and Felicity from the Royal Children’s Hospital, Education Hub, Simulation Team. They unpack the power of simulation-based education exploring what it is, how it transforms healthcare learning, and how it helps teams grow through hands-on experience. From practical skills sessions to immersive clinical scenarios, discover how simulation brings education to life; strengthening confidence, teamwork, and communication across healthcare settings.   Resources/References: Brazil, V. A., Speirs, C., Scott, C., Schweitzer, J., & Purdy, E. (2025). Recommendations for the design and delivery of Visually Enhanced Mental Simulation: insights from participants and facilitators. Journal of Healthcare Simulation, 1-11. https://www.johs.org.uk/article/doi/10.54531/NDXV6633   Rudolph JW, Simon R, Dufresne RL, Raemer DB. There's no such thing as "nonjudgmental" debriefing: a theory and method for debriefing with good judgment. Simul Healthc. 2006 Spring;1(1):49-55. doi: 10.1097/01266021-200600110-00006. PMID: 19088574. Simulation Programs : The RCH Simulation Program  

The RCH has adopted a lead preceptor model to help our graduate nurses transition from student to independent clinicians. Hear from 2 of our lead preceptors about the vital role they play in helping our graduate nurses find their feet in a busy working environment.  

In this final episode of our three-part narrative medicine mini-series, join us for a conversation on Jackson’s Opening. A poem by Andy Jackson. We unpack the layers of meaning within our wounds, challenging us to rethink scars and the narratives that emerge from them.  Link to the poem Opening by Andy Jackson.   

Nursing has undergone many changes over the years. In this episode, we celebrate International Nurses Day on May 12th by speaking with two paediatric nurses at different career stages. Carolyn, an experienced nurse, and Mena, a newcomer to the field, will discuss various aspects of nursing, including training, practice, and what it means to be a nurse. Join us as we explore how things have changed in the last 40 years and find the common threads that connect nurses across time. Our guests will share their perspectives on the challenges, rewards, and core values that have shaped nursing through the decades. This episode offers insights into the evolution of this vital profession, honouring the dedication and compassion that nurses bring to their work.

In this episode, we discuss Zdravka Evtimova’s haunting short story, Blood of a Mole. Join us as we reflect on themes of empathy, detachment and burnout. Like in the previous podcast, we'd like you to get involved in the writing component during our chat. This will help you digest the story better as well as give you an opportunity to create your own ending to this part of the story. Link to the short story Blood of a Mole by Zdravka Evtimova. 

Join us for a thought-provoking three-part Teach, Think, Treat podcast series on Narrative Medicine, where storytelling meets the art and science of care. Featuring Dr. Mariam Tokhi and Dr. Fiona Reilly, we explore texts that reveal the power of narrative medicine in healthcare and life.  Link to the poem What the Doctor Said by Raymond Carver. 

Do you need to do a presentation at a conference or at your work? You may be nervous about it, or you may not be. But how are you going to deliver it?   In a previous podcast, I spoke with Dr Andy Tagg, emergency physician from Western Health and co-founder of ‘Don’t Forget the Bubbles’ website about preparing to give a presentation. We talked about the different types of presentations that you can give, the different platforms that you can use and how to prepare effectively.  Well now Andy has returned, as we now need to consider giving the actual presentation. Join us to hear how Andy keeps his audience engaged while still leaving the listener with some food-for-thought whilst also incorporating story into the presentation.   dontforgetthebubbles.com 

Almost all of us would have had to have given a presentation at some point in their career - Perhaps you were a student having to present at university - Maybe you’re early-career and presenting to a select group of colleagues - Or maybe you have or are about to embark on presenting at a national or international conference. Presenting can be daunting to most and there’s a lot to think about when preparing.  A good presentation is one where there is good preparation.  Today we’re joined by Dr Andrew Tagg. Andy is an emergency physician at Sunshine Hospital (Victoria-Australia) with a huge passion for education. He is also one of the co-founders for the ‘Don’t Forget The Bubbles’ website, which is an excellent resource for clinicians around paediatric healthcare.  dontforgetthebubbles.com 

In this episode we delve into what the Education Hub at the RCH has done during this year. From multiple escape rooms to producing regular podcasts and creating new face-to-face conversational education sessions, we’ve done a lot! We ponder the pitfalls of education in a large hospital setting, the power of outreach and how to inspire people to attend education programs in person. Join us as we take you on our 2024 education odyssey at the Education Hub – RCH. 

Whenever you have competing priorities and a heavy workload, it can be difficult to manage your time appropriately. In this episode, Steve chats with Lichin Lim and Gus Benson, who have varying levels of experience in the health-professional world. Lichin and Gus give us some tips on how to manage your time and increase your work efficiency.  

The RCH has been fortunate to have Epic’s Electronic Medical Record since 2016. For a majority of staff it was simply a transition from paper to a computer. However, to get to that point plenty of work had to occur in the background. Lets take a journey back to pre EMR  and hear the thoughts of those working hard to ensure a smooth transition. The EMR has since been rolled out to other hospitals in the Parkville precinct.    I’m joined by Peter Sloman (Parkville ED EMR Lead), Kirsten Davidson (CNC nursing informatics AND Current Dame Elizabeth Scholarship Winner.) and Naomi Bellion (Nursing Informatics CSN).

In this episode, we delve into the transformative power of Narrative Medicine with Dr. Fiona Reilly and Dr. Mariam Tokhi. Discover how Narrative Medicine enhances creativity, self-expression and empathy, offering new perspectives on clinical education, patient care and professional well-being.    Disclaimer: The examples given by the guests may be distressing to some listeners. For support, please contact your local mental health clinician or support service for advice. 

Student clinical assessments come in all shapes and sizes and largely depend on 3 main factors: The healthcare discipline, the university that the student attends and the year level of the student. In this episode, Andrew Kilgour and Giulia Mccorkell from RMIT university talk about how they have devised a multi-disciplinary assessment framework and how it can replace the current assessment systems for all healthcare disciplines.  

Imagine being a new or undergraduate nurse and being placed in an unfamiliar environment. In an operating theatre, you’re aware of the different scrubs, the theatre cap and to not touch any of the drapes, but what are those “tools” the surgeon is holding. Or why is everyone counting to 5?   In this episode we have Clinical Nurse Educator Carolyn Sahhar who will guide us through the maze which is perioperative care. 

The role of the Clown Doctor is to improve the hospital experience for everyone and they do this in so many ways. In this episode, we talk with David Symons from The Humour Foundation and Amy Gray, head of the Department of Paediatrics from the University of Melbourne. We discuss the role of Clown Doctors and integrate joy into a paediatric setting. David and Amy also introduced a novel program that is designed to impact health professionals and the way they approach their relationships with patients, families and colleagues. 

This is the first in a series of podcasts where we explore the career journeys of different health professionals. Listen in for some sage advice and be inspired by the potential of your future in health care.     In this episode we chat with Jo Miller, Director of Quality at The Royal Children’s Hospital. Starting from her early days here at The RCH Jo’s career seen her traverse the public, private and government health sectors to come full circle with her recent return to RCH. She has always held onto her passion for nursing and caring for others. It a great example of the diversity of options a career in health and particularly nursing can offer.     This story is presented in recognition of international nurses’ day which is celebrated every year on 12th May.    

Escape rooms are becoming increasingly popular as an interactive and engaging tool in healthcare teams. Participating in them can be fun – creating them, just as rewarding. The RCH Education Hub’s Lichin, Benny and Steve talk about their journey in creating an escape room for campus staff, how long it took and how it drove them to create another 2 escape rooms!  

Today I’m joined by Anastazia Drake. Anastazia is a former patient of RCH, has spent a lot of time over the years as both an inpatient and outpatient and has experienced the care provided by the RCH team. She’s here today to talk a little about her experiences and how you, as a healthcare professional, can work effectively in a patient centered care environment. 

In this part 2 of the simulation series, we chat with Kim Price and Dr Dom Cincotta about their experience with in-situ simulation and how they have used it to improve the care delivered to patients suffering from anaphylaxis. 

Simulation has many roles in clinical healthcare. It is used as a tool for education and training, as well as testing systems, pathways and equipment. In part 1 of this series on simulation, we talk with Dr Rebecca Szabo, who introduces the concept of simulation and explains its benefits and challenges.

Some clinical placements require the student to relocate a long way from home, where they may need to pay for accommodation and food. Add in the requirement of unpaid full-time clinical placement with no time to earn any money and you have a huge financial burden. Gus and Pranay are 2 students who have been through this process. They share their experiences and provide suggestions for how you can make the most out of these situations. 

Remember Phoebe? She is now at the end of her student placement here at the RCH. We speak with her one last time before she goes out into the big world.   

Remember Nicola? She is now at the end of her student placement here at the RCH. We speak with her one last time before she goes out into the big world. 

Today we meet Claudia at the end of her student placement at The Royal Children's Hospital. Unlike other podcasts in this series, Claudia just joins us for this one. Nonetheless, she gives us a good look at her last 12 weeks of experience within the hospital environment.

Remember Phoebe? We had a chat with her in Episode 29 when she first started her Medical Imaging placement at the RCH. Phoebe is a 4th year medical imaging student midway into her placement. We check in with her again to see how she is going. 

In this episode, Claire Bauer, Clinical Nurse Educator at The Education Hub Outreach Program is interviewing Nicola about her Social Work placement at the RCH - Melbourne. Nicola is at the midway point of her placement with the Social Work team at RCH. In later episodes, we will catch Nicola at the end of her placement. Hope you are enjoying this sub-series within TTT.

In this episode, Claire Bauer, Clinical Nurse Educator at The Education Hub Outreach Program is interviewing Phoebe about her Medical Imaging placement at the RCH - Melbourne. Phoebe is at the start of her placement.  In later episodes, we will catch Phoebe midway and lastly, at the end of her placement. Hope you are enjoying this sub-series within TTT.

In this episode, Claire Bauer, Clinical Nurse Educator at The Education Hub Outreach Program is interviewing Nicola about her Social Work placement at the RCH - Melbourne. Nicola is at the start of her placement with the Social Work team at RCH. In later episodes, we will catch Nicola midway and lastly, at the end of her placement. Hope you are enjoying this sub-series within TTT.

Working in healthcare can take an emotional toll as we are continuously exposed to emotionally challenging environments. In this discussion, social workers Robyn Clark and Leah Rotin, talk about strategies for how we look after each other and ourselves on a day-to-day basis, as well as the importance of a work-life balance. 

Laura is a nursing student halfway through a six-week placement at the RCH. This placement is also Laura’s last clinical placement before finishing her degree. Laura talks to us about coming from a rural area to undertake a placement at a tertiary hospital, and about being involved in caring for patients and families who have experienced emergency situations.  

To improve and maintain the efficiency of healthcare, the team environment needs to work very well together. But how much do you know about the knowledge and skill set of other members of your team? In this podcast, we chat with Jo Bolton from the University of Melbourne who discusses inter-professional education and why it is so important to ensuring a healthy team dynamic.  https://www.anzahpe.org/ https://interprofessional.global/australasia/ https://www.caipe.org/

Failing a student is not an easy task and can also take a toll on both the assessor and the learner. Sometimes it's just easier to pass them and handball the problem to the next assessor. In this podcast, Dr Cate Scarff talks about the ramifications of 'Failing to Fail' a student and how we all have a responsibility to maintain public safety.  

It's great to supervise a high achieving student. Or is it? It may seem like they are able to learn easily and complete tasks efficiently, but what effect is this having on the student? We talk with Sophie Crotti who has researched the area of the high achieving student, where the supervision of them may not be as easy as it seems.

Being involved in highly stressful situations can take an emotional toll, particularly when you’re expected to go straight back to work following the event. In this podcast, we chat with TJ Clark who is a staff psychologist in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at RCH. TJ talks about her role and how we can help each other to deal with these situations safely. 

We’re very much aware of the impact that Covid had on the teaching and learning of healthcare students. How did this affect their clinical education? Medical Imaging Clinical Tutors, Adam Steward (Western Health) and Steve Lacey (RCH) discuss the results of their research into the effects that restrictions had on clinical placement for students and their preparedness to enter the workforce? 

The Education Hub ran an event on December 1st 2022, to showcase our department. Members of the Hub presented their projects and educational opportunities available to the Melbourne Children’s Campus. In this podcast, we roam around the showcase and chat with The Education Hub staff about their roles, as well as some of the visitors who share their experiences.   

Your student comes to placement every day smelling of body odor and you need to address this. Sometimes, we need to have awkward conversations with students, and this is not something that you train for. Here, we present different, yet common scenarios to 2 clinicians to see how they would react.

You’ve submitted the application and now you’ve been offered an interview! How do you make a good impression and provide the best answers to those questions to get that job? In this second episode on job applications, we talk to Sharon Downie, Director of Medical Workforce at RCH and discuss everything about the interview, including what to wear, what to say and how to say it!  

In this second part of our series on patient centred care, we explore some tips of how to approach discussions with patients and parents. Amanda Stock from RCH Emergency and Marnie Pascoe from RCH Comfort Kids discuss recognising the signs of the concerned parent and how to approach each patient encounter.  

A patient centred care environment in the workplace begins with how we care for each other as a team. In the first of the series on patient centred care, we hear from the founder of the Hush Foundation, Dr Cathy Crock, who discusses her journey through establishing a patient centred care environment and how we can be kind to one another to improve the interactions with our patients.  www.hush.org.au   www.gatheringofkindness.org  

In part 2 of this series on Clinical Supervision, we speak with Danni Tassoni and Michaela Comito from the RCH Dietetics Department. They take us through how they used the Victorian Allied Health Clinical Supervision Framework to implement a very successful departmental clinical supervision program.   

Where do you start when you want to do research? Why bother going through the whole process? In this episode, we speak with PhD candidates Sarah, Yasemin and Douglas, who share their own experiences. We'll discuss concepts involving "research before research", networking and co-design. Their insights and advice on how to make the most out of your own research journey will appeal to many.

The competition for jobs is high and you desperately want that interview. How do you make that CV and cover letter stand out amongst the crowd? Abbey Gordon from the RCH Medical Workforce Unit & Claudia Barriga from Nursing Education give us some tips to ensure your cover letter and CV catch the eye of the employer.

The Victorian Allied Health Clinical Supervision framework outlines the principles that underpin high quality clinical supervision and what clinicians, teams and organisations can do to support this. We talk with Marcus Gardner who describes that aspects of clinical supervision and how the framework can help clinicians and organisations implement and improve their own clinical supervision programs.

Today we're speaking with Dr Jye Gard. Jye is the Lead Paediatric Clinical Teaching Fellow and Education Research Fellow with the University of Melbourne and a consultant paediatrician. He has recently published a paper looking at how medical education has changed as a result of the pandemic and how it has impacted the self-perception of junior doctors’ education and training needs.

Feedback is a very important part of our work. Most of us want to receive it, but most of us don’t want to give it. In this episode, we chat with Elisha Matthews from Allied Health and Dr Peter Howe from Anaesthetics who discuss some feedback structures and how you can do away with the “feedback sandwich”.

The Paediatric Academy is a new and exciting University of Melbourne, Department of Paediatrics initiative. This is a digital platform, much like LinkedIn, that will allow paediatric clinicians and educators to network with other healthcare professionals all over the world. We talk with those behind the scenes, Phoebe Malone and Lichin Lim, who tell us about it and how you can get involved.

Should you use social media for your professional work? Which platform best suits what you want to achieve? What are the legalities around it? We talk with Dr Lexi Frydenberg who helps us answer these questions and discusses how you can get the best out of using social media for professional gain.Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency - Social media: How to meet your obligations under the National Law (ahpra.gov.au)

The RCH Outreach Program delivers paediatric healthcare education across a wide range of topics to external organisations, whether it's rural, metropolitan and even interstate. Today, we talk with Tania Ramos from the Outreach team. She covers the important work they do and how you can benefit from this service and possibly, help strengthen this amazing program.