Welcome, and thank you

A message from former acting Executive Dean of Health Sciences Professor Justin Kemp:

It is with great pleasure that the Faculty of Health Sciences welcomes as its new Executive Dean Professor Suzanne Chambers AO, who commenced on 26 July and is based at our Brisbane Campus.

Professor Chambers is a registered nurse and registered psychologist, and she was appointed an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia (AO) 2018 for distinguished service to medical research, particularly in the area of psycho-oncology, and to community health through patient care strategies to assist men with prostate cancer. She currently leads a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence in Prostate Cancer Survivorship. Her tremendous intellect and practical experience as a leader, researcher and continuing practitioner will be an inspiration for FHS students and staff alike.

Meanwhile, the ever-changing COVID landscape has continued to present major challenges to our faculty. It has upended teaching, research and professional practice activities for every discipline. I commend FHS students, staff and external partners for their continued resilience and fortitude, and for responding rapidly, creatively and collaboratively to each obstacle.

Amid recent challenges, FHS staff again demonstrated grace, compassion, knowledge and dedication to our students and external stakeholders in working and communicating with them to solve the problems that emerged. The FHS Placement Services team in particular, working with the Professional Practice staff in each FHS school and our external partners, managed extraordinary challenges when faced with changing government and health authority mandates across the different jurisdictions. These governmental and health directives had profound impact on our faculty’s students due to changing expectations for undertaking clinical placements. However, through the collaborative and structured processes put in place by FHS staff in a short time, they were able to manage the large cohort of affected health science students to ensure maintenance of a high-quality professional practice program at ACU.

Despite the disturbance by COVID to Semester 2 teaching plans, FHS still launched two new postgraduate programs at midyear: the Graduate Certificate in Aged Care Management, and the Master of Digital Health. Again, I commend FHS staff for their work in developing these programs in such a short timeframe, driven by the Government’s Job-ready Graduates Package, and for their welcoming collaboration with and contributions from ACU’s other faculties. A range of other new products, from microcredentials through to master’s programs, have also been approved for 2022 introduction into ACU’s course portfolio. This includes additional FHS course offerings at the Blacktown Campus, and existing and new programs for delivery via ACU Online.

Our faculty continues to provide international engagement opportunities for our students through virtual and online initiatives. Curriculum delivery via collaborative online international learning (COIL) programs has helped maintain activities with our overseas partners, including the University of North Carolina. A virtual edition of the faculty’s annual high performance sport seminar series, this year entitled ‘Women in High Performance Sport’, brought together world leaders from our partners like the University of Notre Dame (USA) and the Sacramento Kings (NBA). Virtual professional practice placements have been established with international partners in Vanuatu and Vietnam as part of New Colombo Program funding. And placement opportunities via telehealth delivery from our own FHS clinics as well as with our domestic partners continue as a means of providing professional practice for our students within the COVID environment.

Congratulations to all faculty staff who have made these opportunities possible for our students and for their impact on the communities we serve.