ProfessorEugen Molodysky

In 1987, he was appointed by Professor Charles Bridges-Webb as the medical ethics lecturer with the Discipline of General Practice at the University of Sydney, and from 1987 to 1996, he assisted in the development of Problem-Based-Learning(PBL).

In 1997, when The University of Sydney replaced its six-year undergraduate medical program (UMP) with a new four-year graduate medical program (GMP), this PBL model became a teaching cornerstone across the new curriculum and in all four years of the Program.

In 1989, in collaboration with the RACGP, Professor Molodyskydeveloped and produced Medicine Today, the first Video Education Seriesfor Australian primary care doctors which was hosted by Prof. Kerryn Phelps and Dr. Derek Richardson, and which was launched by the President of the RACGP and the Federal Minster of Health Dr Neil Blewett.

In the period 2001-2009, as Member and Foundation Chair of GP Synergy, he was responsible for establishing and developing the Registrar Training Program and the Clinical Teacher Training Program. GP Synergy became Australia's largest Registrar education and training provider with over 1.500 GP Registrars and 1,500 clinical teachers (GP Supervisors), and a medical education team of more than 70.

In 2003, as Founding Convenor, he developed and introduced the first Clinical Teacher Training Program at the Central Clinical School at the University of Sydney Medical School, to provide formal teacher training to clinical academic teachers involved in teaching medical students.

Prior to the adoption of the program, eminent specialist medical practitioners involved in teaching medical students had no formal teacher training. This program involved the development of an evidence based five-tiered framework for effective clinical teacher training programs. The aim of the program was to ensure future generations of medical practitioners developed appropriate knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behaviours. By 2024, this had evolved into Central Teacher Education (CTE) program which has been designed to complement both the online Clinical Tutor Training (CTT) program and the Clinical Tutor Fellowship (CTF).

In introducing the first Clinical Teachers Training Strategic Plan and Program at the Central Clinical School (USyd)), Professor Molodysky was the first to provide formal teacher training to eminent medical practitioners involved in teaching medical students. In 2006, as part of the Sydney Medical School Curriculum Review, he also recommended clinical teacher training for undergraduate medical students. The Central Tutor Education is now provided at all levels of medical education including (1) undergraduate medical students, (2) registrars and (3) clinical academics.

In 2004, he introduced Motivational Interviewing(MI) with direct visualisation of the underlying, still pre-clinical atherosclerotic disease, rather than just indirect information about risk factors and statistical risk of future myocardial infarction, stroke and death, as an effective way to tackle the problem of non-adherence to prevention of cardiovascular disease. Non-adherence to guidelines and preventive measures is a major challenge in the primary care setting, particularly so to obtain long-term adherence to lifestyle changes and recommended medication.

As part of the 2006 Curriculum Review, he recommended that research exposure and training should be part of all undergraduate medical training. The MD Research Project continues to this day as an integral component of the University of Sydney undergraduate medical curriculum and A/Professor Molodysky has supervised medical students under the MD Research Project program.

In 2006, although PBL was now the established standard nationally and internationally for Clinical Problem Solving (CPS), Professor Molodyskyintroduced a recently published alternative - a non-established learner-centred approach, Team-Based Learning (TBL).

From 2006 to 2010, he designed and developed the Youth Wellbeing Program based on that TBL methodology for the 16 high schools in the Eastern Sydney Division of General Practice. The TBL program was facilitated by primary care practitioners, addressing adolescent health issues, and were known as the Youth Wellbeing Forums.

In the period 2012-16, as President of the Australasian College of Nutritional and Environmental Medicine (ACNEM), a developing organisation of over 1,000 registered medical practitioners across the Asia-Pacific region, he was responsible for developing the RACGP accredited education programs and introducing and developing the College's annual national flagship the "Nutrition in Medicine Conference."

In 2016, and more than three years in the making, as Editor-in Chief, he produced the first international edition of the nutritional medicine-based Australian Primary Care Fellowship Curriculum a collaboration between 37 national and 13 international specialist colleagues. It was endorsed and launched by the Federal Minister of Health Ms. Sussan Ley.

This innovative Curriculum was built on the 11 foundation 'blocks' of the University of Sydney MD program at that time, by extending these blocks to 31 clinical modules to embrace the learning outcomes/training objectives for primary care of the RACGP, ACCRM and ACNEM.

What is unique to this Curriculum is that each module has been designed to incorporate 'competency in nutrition' as it applies to the primary care physician in the delivery of primary and secondary prevention, in addition to standard tertiary prevention, in clinical practice. The objectives/outcomes in this primary care Curriculum, of necessity span the four stages of a practitioner's professional career, and as most university curricula, of necessity, focus primarily on tertiary disease diagnosis and management, it will require in turn, the sequestering out, for undergraduate medical teaching, the introductory level content from each module of the Curriculum.

In 2017-20, he supervised three MD project students undertaking research on prediabetes / pre-clinical diabetes, with two Distinctions and one High Distinction and with all three studies published in peer reviewed journals (one in 2021, and two in 2022).

Over the course of my teaching career, he has presented more than 50 times at national and international conferences.