Overview

Overview 

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) with its Divisions, Faculties and Chapters provide exemplary, workplace-orientated education, training and assessment in more than 30 medical specialties to equip Fellows and trainees in Australia and New Zealand with the knowledge and skills required to perform at a specialist level.

Training with the Australasian Faculty of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (AFOEM) under the PREP framework will develop the knowledge, skills and behaviours that a specialist occupational and environmental physician (OEP) is required to have in order to practice occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) effectively.  

As detailed in the AFOEM Training Curriculum, AFOEM training is a vocational, on-the-job educational program, underpinned by 9 key competencies (curricular domains) which reflect the clinical, preventive and population-based aspects of OEM and guide the aims, objectives and individual components of the program. The competencies are:

* Clinical Practice * Workplace Hazard Assessment * Critical Appraisal *
* Research Methods * Working with Leaders * Professional Qualities *
* Law and Medicine * Fitness and Return to Work * Environment *

Unlike other RACP training programs which are predominantly hospital-based, AFOEM training does not involve a series of registrar-level rotations at accredited training sites and is instead nearly always conducted in community settings. Prospective trainees must find their own jobs encompassing OEM within a set of broad guidelines.

Guidance offered by Fellows to trainees is therefore an important component of AFOEM training; as such each trainee must find an educational supervisor and will also be supported by a regional Director of Training (DoT).

AFOEM training is based around 3 stages - Stage A is a new ‘basic' stage (from 2011); Stages B and C are advanced training stages.

• Stage A emphasises clinical skills, critical appraisal skills and professional qualities
• Stage B includes all the special features that distinguish OEM - fitness and return to work, interacting with organisations, relevant law, and assessment of work-related hazards and environmental risks and incidents
• Stage C addresses the abilities that distinguish an OEP including high-level communication, policy development, funding/staffing a service, and completion of research.

The Faculty is currently reviewing all required training time periods. At the time of writing there is no minimum duration a trainee must be enrolled in AFOEM training but it is recognised that around 3-5 years (full-time) allows sufficient experiential time. At present, trainees have a maximum of 10 years in which to complete all components of the assessment and to this end, trainees are responsible for their own progress through the competency based program.

There are currently five components of summative assessment:

1. Written examination (Stage B)*
2. Practical examination Stage B)
3. Research project (Stage B or C)
4. Presentation for the Ramazzini Prize (Stage B or C)
5. Written Communications Portfolio (Stage C)**

* The first Stage A Written Examination will also be held in 2012 (mid-late August - exact dates tbc)

** The Written Communication Portfolio was adopted as an exit assessment from June 2010.

Please refer to the How to Apply for Training page for entry criteria and details of the application process.

Page Last Reviewed or Updated: 2011-11-28