The AMA should promote a professional culture that strongly encourages medical practitioners to engage in teaching and training of medical students and other doctors. This is a key part of sustaining the profession and delivering high quality patient care. Teaching and training promotes the sharing of ideas and knowledge and can benefit the recipient and teacher alike.
In this light the AMA believes that the contribution of practitioners to teaching and training should be appropriately recognised. The honoured duty to pass on knowledge and skills from one generation to the next is an important part of the medical profession’s history and future development and will generally guide the decisions of individual practitioners regarding suitable recompense for teaching and training in private practice settings.
The AMA considers that practitioners should be appropriately recognised for teaching and training through honoraria, academic titles, funding for practice infrastructure, access to resources/facilities and the like. Where practitioners undertake teaching and training on behalf of an organisation that operates for commercial gain, this recognition should not preclude them from seeking appropriate rewards for such services.
It should also be acknowledged that junior doctors working in appropriately supervised positions in private practice may be able to generate sufficient activity to compensate the practice for any costs incurred in providing training and supervision.