AMA training, education and supervision survey: another poor report card for public hospitals

Earlier this year the AMA surveyed junior doctors on the quality of their medical training and the support they are receiving to become medical practitioners. The survey has exposed insufficient medical training resources and infrastructure in our public hospitals.

When releasing the report on 2 December 2009, AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that medical training in public hospitals is being held together by dedicated senior doctors who are giving their time and skills to junior doctors without adequate support from state governments and hospital administrators. He said that there must be enough resources in place to support senior doctors to train the increasing numbers of new doctors in our public hospitals over the next few years, and to support the junior doctors, who are juggling the demands of training and delivering health care to patients.

Chair of the AMA Council of Doctors in Training, Dr Andrew Perry, said that balancing the provision of care to patients with training the next generation of doctors has always been challenging for public hospitals. He said that the AMA is concerned that the survey shows that the obligation of hospitals to teach and train junior doctors is being outweighed by the demand for service delivery.

Dr Perry said the survey showed that not enough resources are being devoted to training. Public hospitals are not quarantining sufficient time for supervisors or trainees from the pressures of immediate service delivery for education and training. Many public hospitals no longer have a culture or environment that encourages high quality medical education.

Key findings of the survey include:

• junior doctors have a good level of access to learning resources,
• public hospitals are adopting important quality assurance mechanisms that enable learning,
• the supervision of junior doctors in public hospitals is inadequate,
• the focus on service delivery by our public hospitals is hindering medical education and training,
• the inadequate investment in staffing in our public hospitals is decreasing opportunities for education and training,
• many public hospitals do not have a culture or environment that encourages high quality medical education,
• public hospitals are not doing enough to foster a teaching culture, and
• public hospitals are not providing sufficient space for junior doctors to undertake study and research.

Read the report on the survey findings here.

The AMA thanks the nearly 1,000 junior doctors who took part in this survey.

AMA welcomes clinical teaching funding but broader funding and resources needed to be truly effective

The AMA has welcomed the Government’s announcement that funding to support clinical training, which was agreed at the November 2008 Council of Australian Governments meeting, will now start to flow.

Dr Pesce said this initial round of funding is urgently needed and is a good start to addressing the training needs of Australia’s future medical workforce. Medical student numbers are growing rapidly. In 2007, there were 1,544 domestic medical graduates, an increase of 22 per cent from 2003. This is projected to increase to 2,920 graduates by 2012.

Dr Pesce said Australia currently doesn't have the teaching resources in place to cope with the increase in student numbers. The AMA’s training, education and supervision survey showed that Australia currently does not have the teaching resources in place to cope with the increase in student numbers.

The AMA has written to Minister Roxon urging her to use the new Health Workforce Australia (HWA) organisation to provide specific extra support for pre-vocational and specialist training. The AMA proposal to the Minister covers:

• dedicated teaching and training time for senior clinicians,
• development of more innovative training for interns,
• professional development programs to enhance the teaching capacity of junior doctors, and
• pre-vocational training positions in community settings.  Read more

New AMA doctors-in-training membership pack

The AMA has prepared a membership pack for doctors-in-training. This pack offers you a great range of benefits including special discounts on MIMS, DELL, Volkswagen, Hertz, American Express and many more. The package is available to doctors-in-training who are renewing their AMA membership as well as those joining for the first time. Find out more

AMACDT meets in Canberra

The AMACDT held its last meeting for the year in Canberra on 17-18 October. AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, addressed the Council on high-profile issues affecting the medical profession, including governance of the health system, national registration and accreditation, and the Federal Government’s nurse practitioner and midwife legislation. Topics discussed by the Council included funding arrangements for prevocational and vocational training; doctors’ health; training in expanded settings; the 10-year moratorium on international medical graduates; and moves by the states to establish medical education and training institutes.

AMACDT writes to CPMEC on national prevocational training and the internship

The Confederation of Postgraduate Medical Education Councils (CPMEC) has prepared a discussion paper on the structure and content of the internship. The discussion paper covered issues including fast-tracking of the internship, the role of emergency medicine and GP terms during the intern year and the implications of the increasing numbers of medical graduates on the quality of the training experience during the internship.

The AMACDT has written to CPMEC and given broad support to the discussion paper’s recommendations, which aligned with the AMA’s position on the duration of the intern year, its core terms and the role of placements in community settings. Read the AMACDT’s submission here.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" – a health and wellbeing guide for doctors

The Postgraduate Medical Education Council of Tasmania has prepared a guide on health and well-being guide for local doctors. The guide comprises information about self-care, ways to stay well and support for junior doctors – useful information for doctors wherever they may be.  Find out more

The health and wellbeing of junior doctors: insights from a national survey

An article written by former AMACDT members Dr Alex Markwell and Dr Zoe Wainer on the findings of the AMACDT’s 2008 survey of the health and well-being of junior doctors was published in the 19 October issue of the Medical Journal of Australia.  Find out more

Coasting to Gold – 14th National Prevocational Medical Education Forum

The 2009 National Prevocational Medical Education Forum was held on the Gold Coast on 15-18 November 2009. The AMACDT’s Victorian representative, Dr Rob Mitchell, presented the findings of the AMA training, education and supervision survey.

MedEd 2009 – “Investing in our Medical Workforce”

The medical education conference MedEd09 was held in Sydney on 30-31 October 2009. Dr Perry presented on the issue of recognition of prior learning and the council’s Queensland representative, Dr Michael Bonning, gave the trainee perspective on increasing health workforce flexibility.

ACCC allows admission and interview policies of graduate-entry medical schools

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has granted authorisation for five years to policies which govern the selection and interviewing of applicants to Australian graduate-entry medical schools. These include the preference policy, where applicants submit a single application listing the medical schools in their order of preference. Under the one-interview policy, applicants will receive only one offer for an interview. In its submission to the ACCC, the AMA gave qualified support to the arrangements.

The ACCC says that the policies streamline the application and interview process and produce cost savings for both medical schools, which can interview fewer applicants to fill the places available, and for students who can avoid the costs of attending multiple interviews.  Read more

AMA online fatigue risk assessment tool

Feeling like your roster is wearing you out?

The AMA offers all doctors a unique web-based tool that enables them to evaluate the safety of their roster, and help make hospitals safer for patients and doctors. The AMA's fatigue risk assessment website enables doctors to track their work, on-call, recreational and sleeping hours over a week, and determine whether their work arrangements are placing them at risk of serious fatigue. Find out more

AMACDT on Facebook

The AMACDT has an AMA Doctors in Training Network on Facebook. This site has photos, links and posts and regular updates on the council’s activities. Click here to go our Facebook site.

AMACDT on Twitter

The AMACDT is now on Twitter. Follow the AMA on Twitter: http://twitter.com/amacdt

Season's Greetings and a Happy New Year

This will be the last edition of E-DiT for 2009. The AMA wishes all doctors-in-training the very best for the festive season and the New Year.

MJA Job Share

MJA Job Share is a free noticeboard facility for doctors who would like to arrange shared working arrangements with other doctors. You can notify specific job share opportunities or register your interest in job sharing so that like-minded doctors or employers can contact you.

This service is sponsored by the Australian Medical Association.  Go to http://www.mja.com.au/classifieds/jobshare.cgi