Welcome to the third edition of Game Changers.
Throughout the last 12 months we have made great strides in advancing our interprofessional education and practice and our interdisciplinary research here in the Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences.
Educationally, our focus has always been to train current and future professionals in clinical and allied healthcare in a way that enables them to work effectively in teams to generate health, social, and cost benefits both for individuals and for the economy. Similarly, in research, our focus has been to foster research that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries to produce integrated solutions to some of the many complex problems in the health sciences.
This last year has seen a significant embodiment of this purpose, with the successful realisation of a number of interprofessional education and interdisciplinary research initiatives.
I am proud to share these with you here in the third edition of our annual magazine, Game Changers:
- Professor Sarah Roberts-Thomson is leading the implementation of interprofessional education and practice at UQ, with an innovative strategy encompassing knowledge and experience for both students and staff.
- Incorporating student practitioners from dietetics, exercise and sports science, clinical exercise physiology, nursing, pharmacy, physiotherapy, and psychology, the new UQ Healthy Living clinic is offering Brisbane’s over 50s a fresh approach to healthy ageing.
- A Professor of Periodontology at UQ’s School of Dentistry, Sašo Ivanovski has brought together some of the world’s leading researchers in the fields of periodontics, materials science, biology, and medical engineering to explore tissue regeneration using 3D printing technology.
- Southern Queensland Rural Health (SQRH) is a newly formed partnership between UQ, the University of Southern Queensland, and Darling Downs and Southwest Hospital and Health Services to address the workforce maldistribution of allied health, nursing and midwifery professionals in rural and remote parts of southern Queensland.
- A group of researchers, led by Professor Catherine Haslam, has drawn on their combined expertise across the fields of social, clinical, health, organisational and neuro-psychology to develop a program to help people who are vulnerable to social isolation and disconnection.
I hope you enjoy these, and many more stories about the Faculty’s achievements, in this issue of Game Changers.
Best wishes,
Professor Bruce Abernethy
Executive Dean
Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences
The University of Queensland