"Thanks for a good three days" was one of the responses of members of the staff of the Wide Bay and Sunshine Coast Divisions of General Practice who participated in a series of workshops delivered recently by Dr Stephanie De La Rue and Ms Annette Byron from the MICRRH Research Unit.

They visited the delightful city of Bundaberg on August 25, and September 25 and 26th 2006 to deliver a program which was designed in response to requests from the Division staff to extend their knowledge about a number of aspects of population health, including an introduction to evaluation and program planning, literature searching and needs assessments. Participants in the sessions contributed enthusiastically to discussions and worked hard at the tasks set during the sessions.

Not only did the program fill in some knowledge gaps - "I had only used search engines such as Google so this was very beneficial" - but it also provided an opportunity to work together using their new skills to plan continuing professional development events for the Divisions.