Educational & Professional Development

 

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Dean's Welcome

One of the primary roles of The Royal Australasian College of Physicians is education - education of trainees and ongoing education and professional development of Fellows.

A key principle in the College's education philosophy is accountability to the public for the competencies and expertise of the Fellows of the College. In this way we seek to uphold the highest possible standards of medical specialisation, to enable the best possible delivery of health services to the communities of Australia and New Zealand.

PREP Basic Training Program

Our recent efforts have been directed to improving the processes, quality and standards of training for our trainees. One of our recent developments has been the introduction of PREP (Physician Readiness for Expert Practice) Basic Training which is a comprehensive system of formative education for our trainees through Basic Training. This process involves:

• trainees working from clearly established curricula guiding their learning
• regular supervision from experienced consultants
• the provision of timely feedback to trainees 
• ongoing regular formative assessments to guide and shape the learning of our trainees.

PREP Program Overview - Prof Kevin Forsyth (video)

Advanced Training Program 

We are in the process of re-engineering Advanced Training with the PREP AT11 project. This will bring 46 new specialist training programs into full manifestation by 2011.

The Advanced Training programs will be similar to PREP Basic Training, where there will be regular formative feedback and assessments to guide and shape the learning of our trainees in the different medical specialties.

Continuing Professional Development 

In the area of Continuing Professional Development we have developed a completely new architecture for our physician Fellows to better consider the learning they need to undertake to improve their clinical practice, to undertake such learning, to reflect on how that training has improved their practice and to log all this information into an electronic environment. This process, called MyCPD, is using best practice evidence in on-going medical education for medical specialists.

An electronic environment

Underpinning all of our education is the adherence to high standards, and the use of electronic environments to link and support our trainees and Fellows. There is a Basic Training Portal which contains all the tools needed for Basic Training, a similar portal for Advanced Training is under development, and the MyCPD engine is already available for Fellows for their Continuing Professional Development.

Support of the Fellows 

All of these activities are undertaken with extensive support from many Fellows of the College who generously give their time and goodwill to support the education of trainees. In addition we expect Fellows to attend to their own ongoing education through the MyCPD program.

I commend the educational activities of this College to you. We are doing all we can to provide excellence in education for our trainees and our medical specialists.. 
 

Professor Kevin Forsyth
Dean

Dean's Newsletters 2009

March 2009