Aims: Increasing numbers of rural patients receive treatment for head and neck (H&N) and upper gastrointestinal (UGI) cancer at major metropolitan centres resulting in clinicians in regional centres being required to provide long term management to patients with complex needs without skills or training to support this. Gippsland Regional Integrated Cancer Services supported a senior speech pathologist from St. Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, and a senior dietitian from Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre to facilitate a workshop in the Gippsland region on evidence based management of H&N and UGI cancer. The workshop aimed to up-skill current regional clinicians ensuring higher quality care to Gippsland patients with H&N and UGI cancer, as well as to produce a DVD of the workshops to provide a sustainable education tool.
Methods: Metropolitan clinicians developed and conducted a 2 day workshop that included both interdisciplinary didactic style lectures and discipline specific interactive sessions. All sessions were filmed. An evaluation was conducted at the completion of the workshops.
Results: Eleven regional clinicians attended (7 dietitians, 4 speech pathologists) and evaluated the workshops. One hundred percent of the participants deemed the interdisciplinary didactic style lectures either useful or very useful, and 100% of the participants found the discipline specific interactive sessions very useful. All participants reported their clinical practice would change as a result of the workshops, that their learning needs were met, and that they made contacts with metropolitan and regional clinicians that would benefit their practice and patients care. A DVD of the workshops was produced following the workshops.
Conclusions: These regional workshops were highly successful, highlighting the importance of ongoing professional development opportunities for regional clinicians in areas of complex patient care. Producing a DVD of the workshop enhances the sustainability of the education and enables future clinicians across the region access to the content.