Advanced Trainee

Sydney Local Health District is seeking a highly motivated Public Health Medical Registrar to join the Community Paediatric Population Health Team at RPA Camperdown.

What you will be doing:

This position is open to qualified medical practitioners with an interest in population and public health medicine. Within the SLHD Department of Community Paediatrics, this role has a strong focus upon social epidemiology and integrated care as tools to optimise health and wellbeing across the lifespan. You will be involved in assessing and describing the social determinants of health as they pertain to our local context within the Sydney Local Health District, and to implementation and evaluation of initiatives aimed at improving the health and wellbeing of our local population, with a whole-of-family focus.

You will have the opportunity to enhance your skills in a negotiated area, with support provided for research activities. Candidates for this position will engage in self-directed as well as work-directed learning of relevant principles and material.

This role has a focus on excellence in teaching and will offer you training toward a higher qualification in public health medicine with the Australasian Faculty of Public Health Medicine (AFPHM).

The Department of Community Paediatrics, SLHD

The SLHD Department of Community Paediatrics offers clinical services for children and families with neurodevelopmental and/or behavioural presentations within our district, with a strong focus on equity. Our clinical focus is strengthened by our commitment to population health, focusing on infants, children, and young people, in the broader context of their families, homes, schools and communities. Our multidisciplinary team of clinical and non-clinical staff have a strong commitment to population health, integrated care and research, with a focus on:

• Environmental, social and intergenerational factors that contribute to child youth and family health and wellbeing
• Vulnerable child youth and family populations
• Social Media and Parenting Communication Strategies
• Delivery of preventative health services
• Prevention, early intervention and community management of child and youth development, behaviour and mental health problems
• Integration of government and non-government services
• Protection from trauma, injury and violence

Public health trainees employed within our department are typically engaged in a number of specific initiatives within our department including, among others:

• The Prime Minister’s Award-Winning ‘Healthy Homes and Neighbourhoods (HHAN) Integrated Care Initiative’ – which aims to break down the barriers to accessing health and social care for families living with adversity within the SLHD. The problems that these families face are highly complex, often spanning over generations, and cannot be addressed by one agency alone. HHAN attempts to connect services to address these barriers, and ensure families have their complex health and social needs met; keep themselves and their children safe; and keep families connected to society. https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/resources/chronic-care/social-determinants-of-health/sdoh/initiatives/red-link
• NHMRC Partnerships Project funded project to evaluate eHUBS aimed at early identification  and response to family adversity among community health attendees – The eHub involves four tiers of support for families, including links to trusted information, a search function and chatbot to identify local services, and a phone navigator to assist families with complex needs. The Child and Family eHub aims to increase access to and use of: i) information and ii) the existing primary health, mental health, and social services system in order to improve mental health outcomes through adequate and responsive service delivery for caregivers with children aged 0-12 years. Evaluation will involve a mixed methods approach, drawing on caregiver surveys, semi-structured interviews, and eHub website meta-data collection and analytics.
• Behavioural Paediatric Partnerships between Health and Education: This body of research seeks to evaluate the impact of partnerships between health and education for addressing behavioural paediatric presentations such as Conduct Disorder. Focusing on the exemplar of the partnership that arose via our School Clinics model of care, findings will inform ongoing collaborative service delivery and resource creation to assist in scaling this model of care into other contexts.

·   Child and Adolescent Health Clinical Academic Group (CAG) funded through  Sydney Health Partners, a research translation partnership between Sydney, Northern Sydney, Western Sydney and Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health Districts. to address equity of access to healthcare in priority populations. The CAG aims to reduce inequitable health outcomes through strengths based collaborative research with children, adolescents, their families, service providers and researchers and support the next generation of clinician researchers in child health equity. (https://sydneyhealthpartners.org.au/child-and-adolescent/)

Where you will be working:

Royal Prince Alfred is the principal teaching hospital of the University of Sydney. Public health registrars within the Department of Community Paediatrics are based within the Sydney Institute for Women, Children, and their Families in Marsden Street, Camperdown. RPAH is one of Australia's leading hospitals, providing an extensive range of services and leadership across multiple speciality areas. Public health trainees within the Department of Community Paediatrics may be called upon to support the Public Health Unit within the SLHD as required, in negotiation with line managers on an ad hoc basis (for example, to assist in local responses to the Covid-19 pandemic).

What we can offer you:

• Supportive, collegiate and diverse work environment
• Ongoing professional development and career opportunities
• Salary packaging and fitness passport for eligible staff including utilizing SLHD gym facilities
• Wellbeing, advocacy, mentorship and support opportunities exclusively for medical staff through SLHDs multifaceted workplace program MDOK.