{"id":41817,"date":"2021-06-18T04:15:14","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T18:15:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/?p=41817"},"modified":"2021-06-16T10:11:47","modified_gmt":"2021-06-16T00:11:47","slug":"professor-debra-nestel-oam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/bellarinetimes\/news\/professor-debra-nestel-oam\/","title":{"rendered":"Top of the class: Professor Debra Nestel receives Queen\u2019s Birthday honour for medical simulation education"},"content":{"rendered":"

AN INTERNATIONAL expert in medical simulation now living in Barwon Heads has been recognised with the highest award in the Geelong region in this year\u2019s Queen\u2019s Birthday Honours List.<\/p>\n

Professor Debra Nestel was appointed as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for significant service to medical education through simulated teaching methods.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really lovely receiving acknowledgement of the broader field, because healthcare simulation has really only had a resurgence in the past 20 years, and it helps position it as something legitimate and important,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my colleagues in South Australia is very interested in the history, and he describes the second half of the 20th century as being the Dark Ages for medical simulation, where it just went off the radar completely.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it\u2019s no longer an outlier method in education practice for healthcare professionals, it\u2019s become mainstream, and I\u2019ve been really fortunate to have come into it at the start of my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her interest in medical simulation began at the University of Hong Kong, where she gained her PhD; and continued at the Imperial College London, where she has been an honorary professor in the Department of Surgery and Cancer since 2007, and then Australia.<\/p>\n

Professor Nestel also holds professorships at Monash University and The University of Melbourne (both since 2016), as well as several other positions, and has authored more than 200 peer-reviewed papers.<\/p>\n

She said improvements in technology and special effects had led to significant progress in her field.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the movie industry has demonstrated to everyone that you can simulate pretty well anything, so we\u2019ve been able to advance that concept of rehearsing simulation with no real patients before you actually go and do whatever task it is as a clinician in a real clinical setting.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were also several Medals in the Order of Australia (OAM) awarded to Bellarine residents on Queen\u2019s Birthday this year. They include:<\/p>\n