Career insight - Allied health
UniSA provides education in the allied health sector for students in the disciplines of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, complementary and alternative therapies and medical radiation.
Upon graduation they are a very mobile professional group, with extremely transferable skills and numerous employment options. Due to a current shortfall of allied health positions in Australia, particuarly in rural areas, the demand for graduates is high with many able to choose from working in private practice, community health care environments or offshore – it’s considered a rite of passage for allied health graduates to work in the United Kingdom at some stage.
There have been significant changes in recent times in the way our students are educated. They now receive a lot more exposure to chronic disease management and patient self management as we are promoting allied health as a facilitator of patient’s long-term health. We are teaching our students to take a much more holistic view of patients by considering what effect their lifestyle and environment play on their condition instead of solely providing treatment for that condition. This change reflects recent advancements of applied and targeted research in the sector.
We have also actively focused on the importance of the primary contact nature of the allied health disciplines by improving the abilities of students in diagnosis, counselling and the ability to impart information that will make a difference to the patient and ultimately place less of a strain on resources within the community.
As educators and researchers we face the challenge of developing more efficient methods to distil current and future research literature in a way that makes the current best treatment evidence accessible to all physicians. Presently many don’t have the infrastructure or time to keep up-to-date with research advances due to the enormity of published literature. The challenge now for our teachers is to educate our students in a way that allows them to be efficient in their time management while also encouraging them to use the resources they have at their disposal in keeping up-to-date with emerging treatment methods.
Our ultimate aim is to produce graduates who are qualified for lifelong learning. Aiding our graduates with a knowledge and understanding of how current allied health research can be implemented into best practice benefits not only the patient but also the community.
Professor Karen Grimmer-Somers is the Director of the Centre for Allied Health Evidence (a collaborating centre of the Joanna Briggs Institute).