NCAHA Hubs occur the last Tuesday of every month with the purpose of supporting regional allied health professionals to network and address issues relevant to their business.

Join us on Tue 30 March as we discuss Allied Health Research on the North Coast - Challenges and opportunities of research in the field.

Allied Health Research In The Field

Want to hear about some innovative Allied Health research on the North Coast?
Thinking about a research project yourself?
Curious about some of the benefits and the pitfalls of undertaking research?

Come and join in the conversation with our panel of researchers. This presentation will focus on the research endeavors of 3 local allied health professionals, their research findings as well as the benefits they have attained from the process and the difficulties they encountered.

Researchers profiles:

About Helen McGregor:

Helen has been working as a Podiatrist in private and public practice for over 35 years in Australia and the UK. She is a full-time clinician and has written and delivered multi-disciplinary clinical skills training programs. Helen has been a past board member of her professional association, Services for Rural and Remote Allied Health and Wounds Australia.

Having been a health professional for so long Helen has attended hundreds of hours of CPD. Through her research she would like to know what motivates Allied Health Professionals to undertake CPD, and what influence the design and delivery of CPD has on the likelihood of translation into practice.

The working title of her PhD research is: Alignment of Educational Intent and Learner Experience in Post Qualification Allied Health Continuing Professional Development.

About Sarah Miles:

Sarah is an occupational therapist with over 15 years’ experience working across Australia and the United Kingdom. She has resided on the North Coast for the last 10 years where she has worked across both public, private and not-for-profit sector. Sarah has worked at the University Centre for Rural Health in Lismore for the last 4 years and is a Clinical Educator (Occupational Therapy) and the Team Leader – Clinical Education (Multidisciplinary Health). Sarah is also a Director on the North Coast Allied Health Association and has mentored and run early career allied health professionals’ groups in the local region for the last few years. Sarah is passionate about helping students and early career graduates’ transition to the workforce and developing supports and mechanisms to assist in navigating the transition.

Sarah has just transferred to a PhD and her topic is: To explore how work readiness is understood and designed for in final practice education placements within the occupational therapy profession.

About Shelley Barlow:

Shelley’s research journey started during her undergraduate course in the 1980’s. Shelley chose research as an elective in her final year of physiotherapy. In those days research was all quantitative, statistics and hypotheses. Shelley was then presented with the opportunity to apply for the Rural Research Capacity Building program in 2010-2021 and completed the course, at which time she did a qualitative study. Between the two opportunities Shelley worked as a clinician and completed a Graduate Diploma of Gestalt Therapy and Masters in 2015. The basis of Gestalt Therapy is the use of phenomenology.

Shelley’s PhD topic is “the lived experiences of physiotherapists in their clinical encounters with people with chronic pain: a Phenomenological inquiry”. She hopes to submit by June this year.

Her wish is that, for anyone embarking on research, they get the support they need to match their passion and perseverance.

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This is an ONLINE event and the Zoom link will be sent to you upon registration.

NCAHA Monthly Hub - Tue 30 March I 6.00 - 7.00pm