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Hi folks. I am thinking of being the driving force behind forming a regional podiatry group with the aim of providing both public and private practitioners with continuing education and networking opportunities. I was wondering if anyone had any experience in setting up such a group, any wisdom to share?

Hi Hazel.

Where are you?

In NZ we have to keep up our certification and we are all in the same boat trying to keep education and networking. I suppose thebest thing you can do is call all your local competition and other allied and medical health persons and see who is interested.

Nurses at Local hospitals are always good sources of local courses journal groups etc... that you may be able to join in on.

Hope this helps

Cheers
JOE

Hi Joe
I am in Victoria, Australia. I have sent out some surveys to local Podiatrists to see if there is any interest. Out of about 13 sent, I have so far 4 very positive replies after less than a week. Rather promising!
I'll keep the nurses in mind as a resource
Hazel.

Try Mt. Alexander Hospital (Castlemaine)- they have a very good regional inservice program

The Castlemaine group are very proactive.

In NSW the Pod Association has recently resurrected the idea too. The board member overseeing the regional groups did some advertising in our monthly magazine and asked for regional co-ordinators.

Our group has been doing well getting together twice so far this year. We are aiming to do a collective promo for foot health week later in the year.

The Association does our mailing and helps us contact pods who keep a low profile. They even gave us a bit of $$$ for our first get together - we had 30 or 40 people turn up to that.

We are now asking for clear guidelines for workshop / seminar etc. development so that what we do will count towards our CE points when compulsory CE comes in for rego.

The trick is to put events on and not expect anyone to turn up! so when 1,2 or 10 people come along you have exceeded your expectations. Also encourage other practitioners to organise events within their own area of speciality.

Its a very worthwhile activity - good on you.

Hi Hazel,
I was one of the Podiatrists who orginially set up the Rural Podiatry Network at Mt Alexander Hosp in Castlemaine.
Our aim of the program was to help facilitate some PD for rural and regional Podiatrists without driving to Melb. The original goal was to invite Pods from the immediate are ie Bendigo, Ballarat etc, but there was a great demand and we had Pods coming from hours away, and even coming up from Melb!!!

The inservices were (and still are) held on a Fri every second month at the Mt Alexander Hosp. We had great backing from our management who allowed us to spend a lot of time organising the inservices, and letting us use the hosp resources without charge ie rooms, cars etc. A fee is charged for the day which is dependent on the cost of the speaker, accomodation, flights etc, and any money left over is put towards a future inservice.
These inservices have been a fantastic tool for rural Pods to get together to learn, and to network in a relaxed fashion.

Hope this helps Susan

Thanks Kate and Susan, food for thought! I agree Kate. Initially I expect the numbers won't be so good. In fact I think it's better to start small and grow, as Susan described with the Castlemaine sessions. I suspect our Hospital/Health Service will also be very supportive.
Thanks guys!
Hazel

hi hazel
im the holder of the rural portfolio of the nsw pod assoc . my inititive was to form groups rurally that can network together , hold cont ed activities and pr . i have included members and non members (to encourage them to become members by seeing the positive side to membership) private and public . i called /advertise in local newsletters for a coordinator for each group ,this wasnt very successful so rang people i knew in each area that i knew to be proactive and this gave me my coordinators. the groups that are successful to date are the ones with motivated coordinators. a survey was developed by one of the coordinators and we gave this to all to alter for their own groups. the survey asked each person what activities they'd like to see in their group.am establishing guidelines for cont ed pts .hope to setup videoing for other groups to use. i would advise distances between groups not to be great if possible, as this appears to create difficulties for good numbers attending. also good speakers and workshops seem the most popular ideas, particually workshops.
wish you luck if you decide to set this up in nz, my email is debbiemarks@optusnet.com.au if you'd like to discuss this further. kate mention some of the other ideas also, kate helps the coord in her area and this is our most successful group to date.