The AMA is inviting members to participate in a short survey to assist with developing an updated position statement on the role of the doctor. The current statement was published in 2011. This consultation is your critical opportunity to ensure a new statement reflects the evolving expectations of the profession and society, and to reinforce the doctor’s central role in delivering high-quality, patient-centred care. 

Key to this review is our commitment to:

  • Focusing the doctor’s role on clinical leadership and expertise, ensuring doctors are recognised as the medical experts within care teams.
  • Reducing unnecessary administrative burdens, so doctors can dedicate more time to direct patient care and clinical decision-making.
  • Supporting effective collaboration with other health professionals, while maintaining clear distinctions in training, responsibility, and accountability.
  • Addressing challenges in training, supervision, and delegation, and ensuring that any changes to scope of practice enhance, rather than fragment, patient care.

Your feedback will directly inform the final revision of the AMA’s position statement, ensuring it remains practical, relevant, and fit for purpose in today’s healthcare environment. The will take just five minutes to complete.

Help us shape a statement that truly supports doctors to do what they do best: deliver outstanding clinical care at the heart of multidisciplinary teams.

Role of the Doctor position statement consultation

We asked

The AMA invited you to participate in a short survey to assist with developing an updated position statement on the role of the doctor. This consultation is a critical opportunity to ensure a new statement reflects the evolving expectations of the profession and society, and to reinforce the doctor’s central role in delivering high-quality, patient-centred care. 

You said

The survey drew a broad and geographically diverse cross‑section of the medical profession — GPs, specialists, doctors in training, career medical officers and retired/non‑practising doctors — from every Australian state and territory (plus some overseas‑trained and offshore respondents), spanning metropolitan and regional/rural practice and all career stages, with most respondents being AMA members. 

Across responses, the dominant message was to ensure the statement assertively defends doctors’ leadership as medical experts and clearly distinguishes their depth of medical training and accountability from other roles. This is especially clear amid concerns about scope creep and role substitution by non‑medical practitioners and the perceived risks to patient safety and continuity of care.  

We did

Over 430 submissions were received, providing valuable input on various aspects of the doctor's profession, system pressures and expectations, clarifications on role scope, and a firm endorsement of doctors' roles in leading multidisciplinary teams and performing as the lynchpin of holistic healthcare to patients. 

This feedback is being used to progress an updated Role of the Doctor position statement, which will be published in the first quarter of 2026.