Pot-pourri eBulletin - 20 October 2023
It was my very great pleasure and privilege as PCHD President to attend the recent Fellowship Convocation ceremony, held on 30 September at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand, in Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. It was a joyful occasion, with a total of 92 new RACP Fellows coming through – 23 of those PCHD – and culminating in an onstage celebration involving not just the new Fellows but a number of their children and families. Such an expression of genuine warmth and connection to family and community is something that AoNZ excels at, and it felt wonderful to be included.
.tmb-medium.jpg?sfvrsn=a79ed61a_1 "NKapur AAinsworth Convocation Sept 2023 (002)")
The photo on the left shows just one of our new Fellows – Dr Alana Ainsworth – celebrating this significant milestone. Congratulations and welcome to you all.
I will also be attending the Convocation ceremony to be held at Brisbane City Hall on 4 November, and I look forward to seeing some of you there.
For several months there has been a focus by the PCHD Council and myself, as PCHD President, to look at how we can better support training in developmental paediatrics, particularly in private settings. Given the increasing demand for trained specialists, we are working with the College to explore opportunities to shape workforce development in this area, including but not limited to advocating for more influence over funding models. It’s early days but discussions continue and I will report back to you on developments as they unfold.
The Gender Equity in Medicine Committee (GEMC) met on 9 October 2023. The GEMC was provided with an updated snapshot of female/male (F/M) split on various College Bodies, together with F/M analysis of the College Bodies Chairs. At present there is relative F/M parity, noting a full report will be provided by the Business Intelligence Hub in the near future.
PCHD Council and the Paediatric Research Committee (PRC) are currently working closely with the College departments to address ongoing trainee concerns around Advanced Training Research Projects (ATRPs). One of the priority challenges has been addressing delays in the marking of reports, a consequence of the number of submitted reports outpacing the number of available reviewers. I’m pleased to announce that, in an effort to attract more Fellows to review these reports, marking will now attract 4 hours in CPD category 2. Please see the call for markers posted below; I strongly urge you to get involved in reviewing ATRPs if you can. Contact AdvancedTraining@racp.edu.au for more details.
In the meantime, we will continue to work with the College to explore other ways to support trainees’ successful completion of their ATRPs. As always, I will update the membership as these matters develop.
Professor Nitin Kapur
PCHD President
Please keep an eye on the EOIs page on the College website for vacant positions on PCHD Committees.
All Expressions of Interest
Each Advanced Trainee is required to submit one substantial Advanced Training Research Project (ATRP) over the course of Advanced Training. Reviewers marking these projects are now eligible for 4 CPD hours in Category 2.
With over 1100 PCHD Advanced Trainees, the requirement for marking these projects generates a large volume of work for Advanced Training Committees and project reviewers. Your support will help ensure that trainees receive their project outcome within a reasonable timeframe. The marking of one ATRP can also earn you 4 CPD hours in category 2.
Please email AdvancedTraining@racp.edu.au if you are willing to assist, or if you have further questions.
In lieu of its annual Chapter Satellite Day, this year the Chapter of Community Child Health has created a short webinar series to be held over four dates from October to November 2023:
- Thursday, 25 October - Integrated care to reduce inequities in child health (Dr Sue Woolfenden)
- Thursday, 9 November - An overview of the third edition (2023) of the RCPCH Purple Book, “The Physical Signs of Child Sexual Abuse” (Dr Alice Johnson)
- Thursday, 14 December - Paediatric Hubs (Dr Niroshini Kennedy)
You can register for individual webinars or the whole series. To find out more, visit the CCCH webpage.
Four toolkits developed by the Australian Paediatric Research Network (APRN) are now available to reference and download from the RACP Online Learning platform. These toolkits are:
You can download these resources from The Resourceful Physician collection, and also search through collection using specific keywords.
To assist Fellows with meeting their CPD requirements, all resources in The Resourceful Physician have been tagged according to whether they contain MyCPD category 1: educational activities, category 2: reviewing performance activities, or category 3: measuring outcomes activities.
See the toolkits
It can be difficult to balance work pressures, interactions with colleagues and personal relationships. To help, we partnered with Converge International. Through the program, you can access confidential counselling, coaching and support for work and personal issues.
The RACP Support Program is a free 24/7, fully confidential and independent help line for Fellows and trainees. All RACP members receive four free sessions per year.
Make an appointment or speak directly with a Converge consultant on 1300 687 327 (Australia) or 0800 666 367 (Aotearoa New Zealand). Any information you give to Converge is completely confidential between you and your consultant.
Find out more and access support
To commemorate our 85-year Anniversary, you're invited to submit your story to our 85 Year Anniversary publication. A total of 85 submissions will be curated into this keepsake publication to showcase the diverse journeys of our members and their personal connection with our College. All submissions will also be published in the College Roll.
Share your story or find out more
The Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health publishes original research articles of scientific excellence in paediatrics and child health. The latest edition is now live and available to view online.
Articles in this edition include:
- Analysis of trends in retinopathy of prematurity over 5 years in a tertiary neonatal intensive care unit
- First nations infant with complex invasive group A streptococcal disease with pericarditis
- Correction to: “The quality of diagnostic guidelines for children in primary care: A meta-epidemiological study”
- Loss of palpebral tissue
- Are all vesicles ‘monkey related’?
Read the journal
Ep101: Setting the standard for workforce wellbeing
Fellows of the College can record CPD hours for time spent listening to the podcast and reading supporting resources. Login to MyCPD, review the prefilled activity details and click ‘save’.
We’ve known for a decade that about 50 per cent of doctors meet the criteria for burnout, and the figure is up to 70 per cent among trainees. But organisations have been left to come up with their own solutions to this, the result being that many simply offer band aid solutions rather than systemic ones.
Unforgiving work conditions pose a problem for both recruitment and retention of staff to the health workforce. The New Zealand Health Department, Te Whatu Ora, forecasts that within ten years supply of doctors, pharmacists and nurses will fall short of demand by 14 to 18 percent. In response they have establish they have established a national Health Charter that sets the workplace standards to keep staff safe and engaged.
Australia is one step behind, but in early September there was a leadership conference aimed at developing a similar wellbeing strategy nationally. It was envisaged that there would be Chief Wellness Officers at every major health service, reporting validated metrics about their workforce to a national taskforce.
And as explained in the keynote presentation at the conference, at the organisational level there are different responses appropriate to the three main domains that influence staff wellbeing; these being personal resilience, professional culture and basic administrative efficiency. This podcast captures reflections from wellbeing champions at several different Australasian health jurisdictions.
Guests
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Dr George Eskander MB DCH DRANZCOG FRACGP (Executive Area Director Clinical Services; North Metropolitan Health Service & Sir Charles Gairdner Osborne Park Hospital Care Group)
- Dr Bethan Richards MB FRACP MMed MSportsMed (Head of Rheumatology, Chief Medical Wellness Officer, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital; Senior Clinical Lecturer, The University of Sydney)
- Dr Joanna Sinclair MB FANZCA (Senior Medical Officer Wellbeing Lead, Counties Manukau Health)
- Victoria Hirst (Chief of Knowledge Networks, General Manager of Health Roundtable, Beamtree)
- Associate Professor Anne Powell BPharm, MBBS, FRACP (Program Director of Physician Education, Alfred Health in Melbourne; Monash University)
- Professor Jennifer Martin MBChB MA FRACP PhD GAICD (Chair of Clinical Pharmacology, University of Newcastle; John Hunter Hospital)
From 1 November 2023, the shingles vaccine Shingrix® will replace Zostavax® on the National Immunisation Program (NIP) for the prevention of shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia.
A 2-dose course of Shingrix® will be available free for:
- people aged 65 years and over
- First Nations people aged 50 years and over
- immunocompromised people aged 18 years and over with certain medical conditions:
- haemopoietic stem cell transplant
- solid organ transplant
- haematological malignancy
- advanced or untreated HIV.
For more information, visit the Department of Health and Aged Care website
Get ready for an exceptional line up of speakers and an informative program at the International Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Melbourne from Monday, 30 October to Wednesday, 1 November 2023.
This year’s forum will cast a spotlight on how transforming healthcare is only possible when everyone comes together to power change.
As an attendee, you will advance your learning of quality improvement methodologies as well as share, and deliberate, ideas that can improve outcomes for people and communities.
Find out more or register
By completing your ‘my work profile’ you will provide us with valuable insights which we can use to make evidence-based and informed advocacy decisions for improving workforce planning. All you need to do is log in to My RACP, click ‘update my work profile’ and answer a few questions about your work activities.
Complete ‘my work profile’
Did you know that the RACP Online Community (ROC) is a private, secure place where you can post messages and engage in discussions with other members? It’s also where you can take advantage of our Member and Special Interest Directories and participate in our Mentor Match program.
The ROC is exclusive to RACP members and Overseas Trained Physicians (OTPs) and is the perfect way to keep up-to-date with what’s happening in your community and the College as a whole.
To access the ROC, simply download the app from the App Store or Google Play, or log in via MyRACP. Watch this short video to see how easy it is to log in to the ROC and be part of the conversation.
Log in to the ROC and find out more
During October, we bring you great offers to help you save even more every day. Your Member Advantage gives you access to exclusive savings on private health insurance, automotive, travel and more. Log in and save with your Member Advantage.
Available online, 24/7. That's your Member Advantage.
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To submit an article for publishing in Pot-pourri, please email paed@racp.edu.au. The article should be no more than 350 words. If you would like to submit an image with your article, it would be assumed that you have received appropriate permission to use the photo and it needs to be of high resolution, above 300 dpi. Please note that articles may need to be edited by the RACP Communications Team.
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