JCU > Research Portfolio > A/PROF Paula Heggarty

About

A/Prof Paula Heggarty is the Principal Medical Educator for the JCU GP Training program and also the assessment coordinator for Year 4 in the College of Medicine and Dentistry.

She holds responsibility for strategic leadership of the JCU GP education program and curriculum development. She is the chair of the Education Committee and Co-Chair of the Training Assistance and Monitoring Committee for JCU GP Training.

Her main interest is development of learning and teaching resources including online learning modules and systems within the GP training program. Clinical reasoning, general practice simulation clinics and formative assessment are other areas of special focus. Her current research interests include evaluation of workbased assessment in medical education and evaluation of patient safety strategies in GP training.

She was awarded a JCU and a National award from the Office of Learning and teaching in 2014 for Outstanding Contribution to student learning.

She also focuses to strengthen collaboration within General Practice including Primary Health Networks, the RACGP, and ACRRM.

Paula remains a clinician and works as a GP in Townsville.

Interests

Teaching

Assessment and learning support

Research Disciplines

Publications

These are the most recent publications associated with this author. To see a detailed profile of all publications stored at JCU, visit ResearchOnline@JCU. Hover over Altmetrics badges to see social impact.

Journal Articles

Malau-Aduli B, Alele F, Heggarty P, Reeve C and Teague P (2021) Key elements of effective postgraduate GP educational environments: a mixed methods study. BMJ Open, 11 (2).
Heggarty P, Teague P, Alele F, Adu M and Malau-Aduli B (2020) Role of formative assessment in predicting academic success among GP registrars: a retrospective longitudinal study. BMJ Open, 10 (11).
Lytton K, Woolley T, Rasalam R, Gorton S and Heggarty P (2019) Benefits of simulated General Practice clinics in the preparation of medical students for primary healthcare. Education for Primary Care, 30 (5). pp. 275-281
Malau-Aduli B, Alele F, Heggarty P, Teague P, Sen Gupta T and Hays R (2019) Perceived clinical relevance and retention of basic sciences across the medical education continuum. Advances in Physiology Education, 43 (3). pp. 293-299
Malau-Aduli B, Alele F, Collares C, Reeve C, Van der Vleuten C, Holdsworth M, Heggarty P and Teague P (2019) Validity of the scan of postgraduate educational environment domains (SPEED) questionnaire in a rural general practice training setting. BMC Medical Education, 19.
Malau-Aduli B, Teague P, Turner R, Holman B, D'Souza K, Garne D, Heal C, Heggarty P, Hudson J, Wilson I and van der Vleuten C (2016) Improving assessment practice through cross-institutional collaboration: an exercise on the use of OSCEs. Medical Teacher, 38 (3). pp. 263-271

Other research outputs

Roche P, Lytton K, Rasalam R, Heggarty P, Woolley T and Harvey N (2019) Simulated acute care wards: do they help prepare medical students for future hospital practice. Proceedings of the Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators. In: ANZAHPE 2019: Conference of the Australian and New Zealand Association for Health Professional Educators, 1-4 July 2019, Canberra, ACT, Australia
Malau-Aduli B, Kerlen Y, Teague P, Bellingan M, Heggarty P, Johnson P and Sen Gupta T (2015) How much basic science knowledge do our students remember? Abstracts from ANZAPHE-AMEA 2015. In: ANZAPHE-AMEA 2015: Joint Conference of ANZAPHE and AMEA, 29 March-2 April 2015, Newcastle, NSW, Australia
Malau-Aduli B, Teague P, Turner R, D'Souza K, Garne D and Wilson I (2014) Benchmarking the attainment of clinical competence. Abstracts from 16th Ottawa Conference on the Assessment of Competence in Medicine and the Healthcare Professions. In: OTTAWA 2014: 16th Ottawa Conference on the Assessment of Competence in Medicine and the Healthcare Professions, 25-29 April 2014, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Current Funding

Current and recent Research Funding to JCU is shown by funding source and project.

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners - Educational Research Grant

Registrar onboarding in general practice: exploring the views and experiences of GP registrars, GP Supervisors and practice managers.

Indicative Funding: $27,836 over 1 year (administered by General Practice Training Queensland)
Summary: The RACGP Standards for general practice training (3rd Edition) provide the requirements expected of general practice training posts, GP Supervisors, and training providers. Standard 2.2 includes that "the registrar has a structured induction to the practice that includes information about systems, resources, support and context," and that the supervision team or supervisor has a documented orientation plan for registrars.1 These Standards also require that the registrar is adequately prepared to participate fully in the operations and scope of practice in the training post, and that orientating registrars to practice placements is defined as a responsibility of supervisors.1 The Medical Board of Australia's 2020 Medical Training Survey Queensland report found only two-thirds {67%) of Queensland doctors-in-training received a formal orientation in their current workplace, and whilst three quarters of the respondents reported a good /excellent quality of their orientation, approximately one in five (22%) rated the quality of their orientation as average and 3% the quality as poor or terrible.2 This was in keeping with national figures.
Investigators: Lawrie McArthur, Paula Heggarty and Kara Freestun (College of Medicine & Dentistry)
Keywords: Medical Education; General Practitioners; Primary Health Care; Rural And Remote Health

Royal Australian College of General Practitioners - Educational Research Grant

Becoming a general practitioner/rural generalist supervisor: registrars? and new fellows? perceptions of the incentives, enablers and barriers.

Indicative Funding: $13,918 over 1 year
Summary: The apprenticeship model of learning, which involves a GP supervisor mentoring and teaching registrars whilst ensuring patient and registrar safety, is the foundation of General Practice training in Australia. The need for GP supervisors is increasing due to an expansion of medical graduates and general practice training positions, the trend in medical education towards workplace-based learning, and targeted Australian Government policies aiming to grow and better distribute the general practice workforce. Moreover, a large proportion of existing experienced GP supervisors are approaching retirement age. An adequate supply of GP Supervisors is fundamental to recruiting and retaining GPs in a practice (particularly in smaller and remote communities) and is a critical component of a high-quality primary health care workforce. Recruitment and retention of GP supervisors is a challenge experienced by all Regional Training Organisations (RTOs), especially in rural and remote areas. RTOs currently adopt a range of strategies to support the recruitment and retention of GP Supervisors (refer also to environmental scan) however it is unknown whether these strategies or other strategies are seen as incentives or enablers to the group of GPs who will become future supervisors.
Investigators: Lawrie McArthur, Emma Anderson and Paula Heggarty (College of Medicine & Dentistry)
Keywords: Medical Education; General Practitioners