Develop your leadership skills: AMA Leadership Development Day – Leading Change

Learn from high-profile leaders with a wealth of experience in leadership, medicine, government, and advocacy at the inaugural AMA Leadership Development Day – Leading Change – on 12 February in Melbourne.

The leadership development day is designed for doctors-in-training and medical students and focuses on the practical skills that junior doctors need to help them with their present and future leadership roles.

Leading Change will provide valuable insights into the world of leadership and how you can be an effective advocate for your profession and patients. The program has workshops on:

• Chairing an effective meeting – Ms Jane Stephens, CEO AMA Victoria
• Consulting to board room: Doctor to Director – A/Prof Simon Willcock, Avant    
• Politics, change and doctors – Mr Francis Sullivan, CEO AMA
• The bureaucratic maze – Ms Glenda Gorrie, Victorian Department of Health
• Get what you want: neurolinguistics in medicine – Dr George Forgan-Smith GP trainee
• Public vs family life: the balance – Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, Former AMA President

For more information contact Tania Goodacre on (02) 6274 5481 or by email at ditnetwork@ama.com.au. Registration forms are available on the AMACDT web page.

AMA Trainee Forum

The annual AMACDT Trainee Forum is being held on 13 February. The trainee forum brings together junior doctors from all the medical college trainee committees, as well as the AMACDT. This is an important event for junior doctors as it gives college trainee representatives and the AMACDT the opportunity to network and share views and perspectives on issues of common interest.

Extra support for medical education & training urgently required: AMA budget submission

The AMA released its Federal Budget submission 2010 on 19 January. We have called on the Government to use the budget to support pre-vocational and specialist medical training through the new Health Workforce Australia agency in the form of:

• 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.

We have also reiterated in our submission the priorities for medical education and training that were outlined in our Priority Investment Plan for Australia’s Health System. We are calling for:

• 820 prevocational general practice training placements a year by 2012,
• 1,500 first-year GP vocational training positions a year by 2015,
• 3,400 guaranteed intern places by 2013 – with processes under which states are accountable to the Commonwealth for delivering on this, and an annual process of monitoring by the Commonwealth to ensure that these places are provided,
• commensurate increases in prevocational training places to meet the increasing number of junior doctors that complete their intern year,
• better access to protected teaching time for junior doctors, while senior clinicians should be guaranteed at least 30 per cent of their ordinary working time to devote to clinical support activities such as teaching and training,
• the Health Workforce Agency (HWA) – in close collaboration with the medical profession through the AMA – to undertake comprehensive and robust medical workforce modelling of supply and demand requirements for the next 10 years to determine the detailed number of vocational training places required in each discipline, and
• the Medical Training Review Panel to report annually on the availability of clinical training places for students at medical school, for doctors in training at prevocational and vocational levels, and to assess progress against the above targets established by the HWA. Read more

AMA urges greater support for IMGs and abolition of 10-year moratorium

The AMA has written to Health Minister Nicola Roxon urging greater support for international medical graduates (IMGs) working in Australia, highlighting the problems they face in getting access to basic community services such as Medicare and public education.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said the AMA has always been a strong supporter of the role played by IMGs in providing health services in the Australian community and wants them to continue as respected and valued members of the Australian medical workforce.

Along with better access to health and education services for IMGs, the AMA would like the Government to abandon the current 10-year moratorium, which effectively forces many IMGs to work exclusively in rural and remote areas for 10 years or more. The Government recently introduced welcome changes to assist New Zealand IMGs, and the AMA would like to see this as being the first step in dismantling the 10-year moratorium.

The AMA is calling on the Government to adopt a more robust package of incentives and support mechanisms to encourage the increasing numbers of locally trained doctors and appropriately skilled IMGs to voluntarily consider a career in rural and remote Australia. Read more

Australian Curriculum Framework revised

The Australian Curriculum Framework (ACF) underwent a major revision during 2009, the first since its launch in 2006. The revision involved widespread feedback from stakeholder groups including the AMACDT.

The revised version has a new look. It is still available for printing as an A3 brochure version and is now available in a booklet format. Click here to view the revised framework and click here to view the poster version.

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 much 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

ACRRM accreditation

The Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACCRM) is seeking full accreditation of its training pathways and processes by the Australian Medical Council (AMC). This is a peer review process, undertaken by an AMC team, which results in a public report.  As part of this process the AMC is surveying college registrars.

ACCRM registrars were recently sent the survey by mail. The survey can also be completed online at www.amc.org.au/surveys/registrars  (using the survey code found on the bottom right hand corner of the survey that was mailed). The closing date for this survey is Friday 29 January 2010. For more information contact specaccred@amc.org.au.

Members of the AMC team will be visiting a number of towns between 1 - 16 March 2009 to meet registrars completing ACRRM training pathways and their supervisors. These visits allow the team to explore in depth the issues raised in survey responses and to learn about how training is delivered in various centres. Details about venues and dates for these meetings will be available from the AMC in February 2010.

AMACDT on Facebook and Twitter

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. You can also follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/amacdt.

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