THORACIC MEDICINE

Components of Training

Core training
Clinical Thoracic Medicine
Training should include a wide exposure to all common respiratory diseases including lung cancer, tuberculosis and experience in respiratory intensive care. All advanced trainees in clinical thoracic medicine should also gain sufficient first-hand experience in a respiratory function laboratory to be familiar with the performance and application of commonly used respiratory function tests in the management of patients with respiratory disease

Clinical Sleep Medicine
All thoracic medicine trainees must undertake the equivalent of at least three months training in sleep medicine, as part of their core training in thoracic medicine. This training should occur in an institution with a sleep laboratory and its associated clinic(s) where the trainee should obtain:

• knowledge of basic sleep physiology;
  
• experience in the diagnosis and management of cardiorespiratory sleep disorders; and
• knowledge of the symptomatology and management of nonrespiratory sleep disorders, particularly those that enter into the differential diagnosis of sleep apnoea (e.g. disorders that cause excessive daytime sleepiness).
  

Trainees should obtain experience in the clinical application of polysomnography and should receive basic training in the polysomnographic techniques used to measure and score sleep, and abnormal sleep-related respiratory events.

[ Back to Vocational Advanced Training Menu ]

Desirable Options
It is recommended that some experience with subspecialty and related disciplines is obtained and these include thoracic surgery, infectious diseases including pulmonary infection in the immunocompromised, adult cystic fibrosis, lung transplantation, ENT surgery, clinical allergy and immunology and occupational lung disease.

[ Back to Vocational Advanced Training Menu ]

[ Home ] [ General Information ] [ Basic Training ] [ Advanced Training ]
[ Advanced Vocational Training ] [ Training outside Australia & New Zealand ]
[ Return to RACP Homepage ]

bl