Significant funding for Notre Dame clinical school

The Commonwealth yesterday announced 18 million in funding for a University of Notre Dame outer- metropolitan community clinical school, with headquarters to be located at the Ramsay Health Care operated Joondalup Health Campus (JHC). Project developer and proposal author, Notre Dame Executive Dean of Medicine, Professor Julie Quinlivan, said the funding would enable a large community clinical school to support the training and education of doctors. “The funding will provide a boost for teaching infrastructure at Rockingham Kwinana Hospital, Armadale Kelmscott Hospital and Swan Districts Hospital sites, which will link to the main Joondalup development,” Professor Quinlivan said. “Joondalup Health Campus will link information technology to smaller education and training buildings at the three other large outer metropolitan hospitals in Perth, contributing substantially towards progressing medical education in a community setting.” Professor Quinlivan said the proposal would also provide funding for new clinical academic staff at all sites. “In addition to 15 million in infrastructure, the proposal provides 3 million in clinical academic staff to support medical education at the Notre Dame Fremantle medical school, as well as a salary for a clinical academic in obstetrics and gynaecology to oversee the development process at the Joondalup Health Campus site,” she said. Professor Quinlivan said a key feature of the new infrastructure will be a new women’s health centre, medical laboratories and teaching facilities to enable linkages between hospital sites. “The project will enable state of the art clinical training in women’s health at Joondalup Health Campus as well as training in other disciplines at other sites,” she said. “We intend to work collaboratively with other universities at these hospital sites and hope to facilitate inter-professional education between medical, nursing and allied health students.” JHC Chief Executive Officer, Mr Kempton Cowan, welcomed the additional funding. “This further commitment by a significant Western Australian university will only add to the services, clinical standards and teaching facilities, which will come on stream at JHC over the next two years,” Mr Cowan said. Funding for the project was made available through Health Workforce Australia as part of a Commonwealth Government package to develop clinical training places. Media Contact: Andrea Barnard (+61) 8 9433 0610, Mob (+61) 0408 959 13