The fast track to learning

While her fellow commuters on the train were listening to music or gazing out the window, Jaymee Murdoch was on her laptop adding to her qualifications.

Jaymee, a Pharmacist who works for the Australian Digital Health Agency as a Terminology Analyst for medicines, has just completed the University of Tasmania’s online Bachelor of E-Health and Health Informatics course.

Jaymee was drawn to e-health because of the innovation taking place in the area.

“I felt I had the opportunity to have a bigger impact by working in this space.

“It’s a really interesting and innovative industry - there’s a lot of development happening, in particular with electronic health records, which made it quite appealing,” she said.

For me, I like knowing that the work that we’re doing is contributing to a high quality electronic health system, and is moving things in the direction of paperless healthcare, which will be amazing.

Jaymee and her employer investigated a variety of e-health courses and settled on the University of Tasmania’s offering.

“I wanted to see what would supplement the work that I was already doing and give me an opportunity to learn in more detail what’s happening in the industry, and what other things I might be able to be involved in.

The course gave me a very good background into health informatics and e-health. It introduced me to a lot of new skills that I am finding I can apply at work.

“My employers were very supportive, and they were happy for me to share things I had learned with the team.

“For me, going back to studying seemed a bit intimidating, but once you get started, you quickly settle back into the routine,” she said.

I found that the lecturers were very happy to be flexible if I had a work deadline and couldn’t finish an assignment on time. They were very understanding.

Jaymee said the flexibility of the course meant it fitted into her daily routine nicely.

“I use my daily commute time to do a lot of my University work which was really helpful. I found it quite easy to slot it in to the time that I had,” she said.

I had really two hours each day to read or work on assignments as I travelled. It was perfect.