Final Message from Chair of CDT and More

First of all, I would like to congratulate my successor Dr Hannah Szewcyzk who is a passionate O&G trainee in South Australia and has a lot of experience in trainee representation and advocacy – I know she will do a great job over the next 2 years as your incoming CDT Chair!

As I write this last message, I have been reflecting on all that we have achieved these past couple of years. Dare I say the word – unprecedented – but it has been an interesting and challenging time to be your Chair during the pandemic and the subsequent impact it has had on us as trainees. I would like to highlight several key achievements over this time that I hope you will appreciate has been a very successful period despite the difficulties of largely a CDT that worked remotely.

1.       The restructure of the AMA Council of Doctors in Training to expand our advocacy and also increase opportunities for members to be directly involved in the work we do, in the areas they are interested in. This is the full list of our AMACDT Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and Advisory Committees (ACs) - see if there is one or two you would like to be involved with. This expanded advocacy has also been encompassed in our AMACDT Strategic Plan 2021-2022 – with our advocacy goals for this period focusing on prevocational and unaccredited trainees, trainee career progression, and the wellbeing of doctors in training.

2.       Restructure of the AMA Federal Council which was passed at our most recent AMA Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) March 2022 after the AMACDT National Conference Motion in 2020 to restructure the Federal Council to become more inclusive and diverse. Through this we have increased DiT representation at Federal Council with a second DiT representative position. The Deputy Chairs of AMACDT also sit on Federal Council as observers, and the new Ordinary member positions are open to DiTs with one being taken up by SA DiT Dr Ekta Paw. The new structure has also achieved the AMA’s Gender Target for the first time!

3.       Advocacy for Specialist Medical College Trainees has been achieved via our AMACDT Trainee Forums composed of your 16 Specialist Medical College Trainee Committee Chairs & Representatives. The Trainee Forum has been integral to our advocacy for vocational trainees and began when we initially developed our changes to training document for the impacts COVID-19 had had on training programs and subsequent advocacy on the exam disruptions and exam technical failures – see here for all our advocacy during COVID. The AMACDT Trainee Forum has also discussed several other important topics including selection into training, costs of training, trainee representation within Colleges, and most recently supporting our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees to progress to Fellowship.

4.       Tangible wellbeing advocacy via our Wellbeing Specialist Interest Group (WSIG)

·         Launch of the Every Doctor, Every Setting: A National Framework - guiding coordinated action on the mental health of doctors and medical students. https://vimeo.com/476954968?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=72284531

·         Advocacy on legislative change for every State & Territory Hospital and Health Service Board to increase accountability for the psychosocial safety of their healthcare workers – see changes in South Australia - Health Care (Governance) Amendment Act 2021 (legislation.sa.gov.au)

·         Advocacy to the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Healthcare (ACSQHC) to strengthen the National Safety and Quality Health Service (NSQHS) Standards to include healthcare worker wellbeing given the potential patient safety implications

·         AMACDT also hosted several roundtables on Bullying, Discrimination and Harassment in the medical profession

·         And we also updated the AMA Position Statement on the Health and wellbeing of doctors and medical students - 2020

5.       GP Advocacy for ongoing pay parity and transfer of entitlements for our GP trainees with promotion of the Single Employer Model as a pragmatic solution moving forward

6.       Prevocational Trainee Advocacy – via our input to the AMC’s Review of the National Framework for Prevocational (PGY1 & PGY2) Medical Training and further the upcoming changes regarding CPD Homes. We continue to also contribute via the National Medical Workforce Strategy 2021-2031 on the Department of Health Service Registrar Working Group to accredit all prevocational training positions.

7.       Contributing to Gender Equity and flexible training policy via updating the AMA Position Statement on Medical parents and prevocational and vocational training 2020

8.       And finally, the sensational output of all our SIGs & ACs and the development of our social media sites – see https://www.facebook.com/amacdt / https://twitter.com/amacdt / https://www.instagram.com/amacdt/ - please follow to receive our most recent updates!

Most importantly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the council members of CDT, all the members of our SIGs and ACs, the AMACDT Deputy Chairs – Drs Rebecca Wood, Laura Raiti and Hannah Szewcyzk, the AMA CEO Dr Martin Laverty, AMA President and Vice President Dr Omar Khorshid and Dr Chris Moy and the AMA Secretariat Jay Zanesco, Kristen Farrell, Andrew Lewis, Anita Mills and particularly Ms Sally Cross. Lastly, I would like to thank all our members for your support of the AMACDT and for your ongoing contributions – without you, none of the work we do would be possible. I truly believe we as a group have been able to achieve so many things for doctors in training across Australia despite the pandemic, and we will continue to do so moving forward by continuing our collaborative approach to advocacy.

I wish Hannah and the incoming CDT team the best of luck and I look forward to seeing their achievements over the next couple of years!

Keep in touch!

Hash