The NTMP students have held a very successful evening showing the film ‘Take Heart:Deadly Heart’ Journey to an RHD free future. This movie raises awareness of the critical factors contributing to the incidence and prevalence of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease in Australia, predominantly as a result of poverty. Some solutions demonstrated in the film include the importance of health promotion and communication in language, the improved access to information and health care for kids through schools and supporting local Aboriginal Health Practitioners skills in echocardiographic screening for cardiac abnormalities. I appreciate the student passion to be involved in critical health issues.

Our students are an incredible group and I thank them for the many initiatives they support. We recognise the diverse contexts they are learning in and that students and staff in the NT are supported through our peer networks and local affiliations and stakeholder connections. These need recognition and strengthening.

Our NT Course Development Committee is the forum for ensuring the MD in the NT meets our needs across our sites and with context specific curriculum. This forum gathers 5 times a year and has academic staff and clinician members from all sites. I value the feedback and engagement of this group in ensuring our program focuses on the critical issues for Years 1-4 and the nature of the course delivered in the NT, for the NT.

Please contact me emma.kennedy@flinders.edu.au or Gill Paynter, Program Manager, gillian.paynter@flinders.edu.au  with any queries.

Associate Professor Emma Kennedy  RACGP
A/Prof in Medical Education & Training
Flinders Medical Program (NT)