THE largest rural health school in Australia will soon have a new boss.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Jane Mills is taking the reins at the La Trobe Rural Health School, which is headquartered in Bendigo and teaches more than 3000 students.
Professor Mills is considered one of Australia's best primary health academics and her appointment comes the 10-year-old school vies to become a world leader in rural health research, La Trobe University's Amanda Kenny said.
"She has an absolutely enviable track record, particularly in rural health. So it's such a great appointment," she said.
Professor Mills started her career as a nurse in remote areas of Tasmania, before moving to Queensland in 2000 and starting academic work.
More stories:
Her experiences make her an ideal candidate to head the LRHS, Professor Kenny said.
"The majority of our students go on to work in regional Victoria, so we make a massive contribution to the workforce.
"Jane's got the skills to help us develop a workforce that really meets the different needs rural Australians have.
"We often think of the evidence around health outcomes as very metropolitan-based, but we know there are dramatic differences in what a rural health workforce needs, and what it needs to do."
The school's next direction will hinge on the results of a regular review into the school's operations, the latest of which will coincide with Professor Mills' arrival in August after finishing up work at New Zealand's Massey College.
"I do have a vision for the school, going forward, that it will focus very much on rural health and making rural health matter. That will be a theme we pull together through each of our departments," Professor Mills said.
"The school already has an excellent reputation and it's known nationally and internationally as a strong place for students to come and learn about their discipline and what it means to be a rural health practitioner.
''So in many ways it's about amping that up and providing a strong focus on it across (everything we do)."
Professor Mills is a world-leading researcher specialising in a method called grounded theory, Professor Kenny said.
"That theory is about developing theory from the research we do, and how it can be translated to other works," she said.
Professor Mills replaces Pamela Snow as dean and head of the LRHS.
Professor Snow recently took a position in the newly created professor of cognitive psychology with La Trobe's School of Education.
She remains based in Bendigo.