AMA urges Minister to ensure that states honour COAG agreement on training places

More than 28 trainee representatives were at the AMACDT meeting on 17-18 October 2016 where a growing level of concern was expressed about projected shortages of postgraduate medical training places and the lack of leadership and coordination in this critical policy area. Following this meeting, the AMA President wrote to the Minister for Health requesting that the Commonwealth hold states/territories to account and honour the COAG commitment from 2006 where the states/territories guaranteed intern training places for domestic medical graduates.

“We know that there are a sufficient number of graduates making their way through the training pipeline” said AMACDT Chair, Dr Danika Thiemt. “However, graduates require prevocational and vocational training to progress and without adequate investment into training places, we will never build the health workforce we need.  There needs to be Federal leadership regarding the expansion of vocational training.”