Audiology team hosts hospital and community audiologists for professional development
The Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology recently hosted a half-day event for the audiology profession with 40 attendees, primarily members of the Victorian Diagnostic Audiology Group (VDAG) – a special interest group of primarily public hospital and community health audiologists with a paediatric and diagnostic work focus. Attendees included colleagues from metropolitan Melbourne and various regional centres such as Warrnambool and Mildura.
The program of events commenced with a Master of Clinical Audiology course update (presented by Dr Kelley Graydon), with attendees learning about the new curriculum currently being rolled out and providing stakeholder comments.
Attendees then took part in an Audiology Australia endorsed professional development session presented by Dr Peter Carew which focused on supporting clinical educators to engage in feedback conversations with audiology students when on clinical placements. With the commencement of a new clinical placement opportunity for audiology students within the Victorian Infant Hearing Screening Program (VIHSP), our audiology attendees were joined by eight hearing screeners and senior managers from VIHSP. The attendees engaged with each other to share their experiences of supporting honest conversations with students and trialled new frameworks to support learner-driven conversations. Post-event survey responses indicated strong appreciation of the opportunity to discuss the topic, satisfaction with the program content and delivery, and strong desire for future events that further support equipping clinical placement educators for important conversations for student learning.
The session concluded with a VDAG business meeting chaired by Audiology’s Dr Alex Walchhuetter. This periodic meeting serves as one of the only opportunities for community and hospital-based audiologists to come together and discuss topics that impact service provision across the state. Many attendees also then attended the 50 years of Audiology celebration at Melbourne Connect that evening, creating a full and stimulating day for our audiology alumni and educators.
Thank you and congratulations to Alex Walchhuetter for coordinating the day, Jocelyn Phillips for her assistance across the VDAG meeting and to Kelley Graydon and Peter Carew for their session contributions.
