Australian Medical Association warns of looming medical training crisis

Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, has written to all Federal MPs and Senators warning them of a looming crisis in medical training unless the Commonwealth and the States work together to provide the resources and infrastructure necessary to train the next generation of Australian doctors.

In his letter, Dr Haikerwal acknowledges the Federal Government's initiatives in creating more medical school places, but he points out that there is little or no strategy in place to teach and train the significant increases in medical students and newly graduated doctors.

Dr Haikerwal said today that without urgent action by all governments, Australia will have a new generation of doctors who, through no fault of their own, will struggle to gain the detailed education and significant clinical skills needed to practise independently.

"This is an enormous safety and quality issue," Dr Haikerwal said.

"While we have a 130 per cent increase in the number of medical school places, we do not have a corresponding increase in teaching and training capacity.

"We face a situation where our doctors of the future will hit a brick wall in their medical education, which will have catastrophic effects on the medical workforce, our hospitals, and the access to quality health care that patients rightly expect.

"The Commonwealth and State and Territory Governments must work together to ensure that sufficient clinical placements are available for these students, along with adequate intern and specialist training places, and academics to guide their progress.

"The State and Territory Governments are clamouring for more medical training places without meeting their obligations to provide the resources and facilities needed to ensure these students will receive quality medical training.

"To convert a medical student to a doctor requires an internship provided by the States.

"For that doctor to then be a fully trained GP or other specialist requires between five and ten years of clinical training in hospitals with beds that are open, with the opportunity to actively treat patients, and with clinical staff to teach them.

"Training a doctor is about a lot more than classroom theory, surfing the net, simulations and performing procedures on dummies.

"Seeing and treating real patients with real conditions is fundamental to producing a well-rounded and highly skilled medical practitioner.

"But our current medical students face a considerable obstacle on their career paths unless their future clinical training needs are addressed now.

"We need these new doctors out there working in the community as early as possible. We can't afford to lose them in a training ‘black hole'," Dr Haikerwal said.

A recent survey of 561 medical students in Western Australia, where there has been a dramatic increase in student numbers, found that 80 per cent believed increased numbers was having a negative impact on the quality of their education, while 77 per cent were concerned about the quality and availability of future training positions.

Strong themes that emerged from the survey were the dissatisfaction with the high rates of student to teacher ratios, and the increasing reliance on junior doctors as teachers instead of more experienced clinicians.

By 2012, Australia will need 3200 intern positions to meet the demand for places. To illustrate the challenge, in 2005 there were 1553 intern places available, and 1780 vocational training places.

Dr Haikerwal said the Commonwealth must hold the States and Territories to account to provide the resources needed to support the increased medical training places that have already been created.

"Australia must not repeat the mistakes of the UK where several thousand junior doctors are now unable to find training positions," Dr Haikerwal said.