Skip to content | Change text size
 

Smoking ceremony signals Bendigo clinic's opening

20 July 2005

A Koori smoking ceremony signaled the opening last week of the new offices of Monash's School of Rural Health's Bendigo Regional Clinical School.

From left, Mr Allardice and Mr Sam Kerr, from the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Co-op and Dja Dja Wrung.

The school's regional manager Mr Graham Allardice said the ceremony at the new offices in Lister House acknowledged the Koori stewardship of the land for many centuries.

"The Koori had the care of the land entrusted to them in a somewhat similar manner to the way in which our school has been entrusted with helping in the medical care of the people of this region," he said.

Lister House is the new administrative centre for the School of Rural Health and the Bendigo Regional Clinical School.

About 25 academic and general staff, including the head of the School of Rural Health, Professor Geoff Solarsh, will be based at the premises.

The Bendigo Regional Clinical School is part of a State and Federal Government initiative to make medical education in rural locations more accessible to students.

In the longer term we hope students will learn that medical practice in a regional or rural setting is a viable option for their careers, Mr Allardice said.

"To encourage this, some students already spend a portion of their clinical years in rural settings including the Bendigo Health Care Group and GP practices in Bendigo and towns such as Swan Hill, Kerang and Castlemaine."