Submission

Review of the national framework for medical internship

The medical profession has a professional and social responsibility to provide prevocational trainees with a safe and educationally valid training experience that promotes specialist qualification within a realistic time frame, and delivers safe, efficient and effective patient care. The AMA welcomes the periodic review of medical training paradigms to support long-term quality improvement in medical training. This review is an opportunity to examine the structure of prevocational training across post graduate years (PGY) 1 and 2 to support the development a high-quality medical workforce well equipped to meet community need. It is important that any proposals to change the current model of prevocational training are incremental and evidence based.

The development of a two-year capability and performance framework affords the opportunity for all PGY 1 and 2 training places to be accredited. The AMA supports a nationally consistent framework for the accreditation of prevocational medical education, underpinned by Australian Medical Council (AMC) accreditation of PMCs or their equivalents. Employers should be accredited, to agreed standards, before being permitted to employ prevocational trainees.

Areas for consideration include:

  1. Whether there are any components of intern training that could be better redistributed within the health system. This includes consideration of what administrative tasks could be removed from the intern year to provide them with more time to focus on clinical skill development.
  2. The benefits, consequences and practical application of introducing intern rotations that last for a longer period.
  3. The feasibility of alternate categories for mandatory terms (e.g. acute, sub-acute and community care) and how such a reconfiguration would work.
  4. The practical application of two-year contracts for PGY1 & 2 nationwide. This could offer security of employment for prevocational trainees and an opportunity to focus on their training in a familiar environment. It also provides hospitals and health services with a known workforce to assist with workforce planning.

The AMA made a submission to the Australian Medical Council consultation on the proposed scope of the review of the national framework for medical internship in December 2019.

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