RACP Trainee Research Awards
Applications for 2024 close 11:59 pm (AEST) 31 August 2024.
All Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand trainees are invited to submit abstracts for oral presentation on topics related to the fields of adult or paediatric medicine for the RACP Trainee Research Awards. Those selected will present at competitive regional events being held in Australian States and Territories and Aotearoa New Zealand.
Trainees who take out top honours at their regional event will be invited to present alongside recognised researchers at an RACP event in 2025. Regional top honour trainees will also be invited to have their abstracts published in the Congress supplement of the Internal Medicine Journal or Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health.
RACP Trainee Research Awards Symposium 2024 – a free hybrid event.
The 2023 award recipients will present their research at a Symposium to be held in the historic 145 Macquarie Street, Sydney in the afternoon of Friday, 26 July 2024.
Members and non-members are welcome to attend, either in person or online.
Registrations are essential.
Registrations for in-person attendance close Wednesday 24 July, and for online attendance 12pm AEST Friday, 26 July 2024.
Register
Guest Speaker: Professor Susan Woolfenden MBBS, FRACP, MPH, PhD
Director of Community Paediatrics, Sydney Local Health District.
Professor of Community Paediatrics, Central Clinical School, Sydney Medical School, the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney.
Co-chair, Sydney Institute Women, Children and their Families
Presenters
Paediatric Medicine
Dr Charlene Roufaeil (VIC)
Is cranial ultrasound useful in small for gestational age or growth-restricted infants born over 32 weeks gestation?
Dr Mathew Wong (QLD)
Audience response systems improve the junior doctor experience, engagement and clinical reasoning in paediatric case-based learning: a prospective study
Dr Emily Rice (WA)
Corticosteroid Choice in Children Admitted to PCH with Acute Asthma and Viral Wheeze
Dr Ngaire Keenan (AoNZ)
Ethnic disparities in epilepsy: a population-based study of Māori and non-Māori-non-Pasifika children with epilepsy
Dr Alice Rogers (SA)
Extending the new era of genomic testing into prenatal care: a proposed model for prenatal services and review of pregnancy management outcomes
Dr Hannah Uebel (NSW/ACT)
The Association Between School Performance and Out of Home Care in Children with Prenatal Drug Exposure: A Retrospective Population-based Cohort Study of 901,323 Australian children
Dr James Lacey (TAS)
Detecting Patent Ductus Arteriosus in Neonatal Phonocardiograms
Adult Medicine
Dr Nicolas Smoll (QLD)
The effectiveness of vaccination for preventing hospitalisation with COVID‐19 in regional Queensland: a data linkage study
Dr Johanna Birrell (AoNZ)
Geographic variations in kidney failure in Aotearoa New Zealand
Dr Michael Hoskins (WA)
Educating health professionals in ultrasound guided peripheral intravenous cannulation: A systematic review of teaching methods, competence assessment, and patient outcomes
Dr Stephen Bacchi (SA)
Artificial Intelligence Facilitates Penicillin Allergy Delabelling: Derivation, Validation, Synthetic Data, and Implementation
Dr Henry West (NSW/ACT)
Automated quantification of epicardial adipose tissue on cardiac CT unlocks best prediction of post-cardiac surgery AF risk
Dr Brennan Collis (VIC)
P2/N95 fit testing and the risk of COVID-19 in Healthcare Workers
Dr Sonia Sawant (NT)
Underrepresentation of ethnic and regional minorities in lipid-lowering randomized clinical trials: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Eligibility
You must be:
- an RACP trainee* actively training in any of the College Divisions, Faculties or Chapters, or
- a New Fellow actively undertaking Post-Fellowship training with the RACP (see the Post-Fellowship Training section on the Variations in Training page), provided you have been admitted to Fellowship within the last 12 months.
An applicant on an Interruption of Training may be accepted, provided that the Interruption does not exceed 12 continuous months at the time of application.
Overseas Trained Physicians undertaking RACP training are ineligible to apply.
In your application, select the category that best aligns with your topic. For example, you're an Adult Medicine trainee but your topic best aligns with paediatric medicine, then you should apply for the Paediatric Medicine category.
*We acknowledge that when the presentation event is held in the following year, an Award nominee may have become a Fellow.
Prize
Trainees selected at each Australian regional and Aotearoa NZ event receive the opportunity to present alongside recognised researchers at an RACP event in 2025. Presentations will be required to be made in person. Further details to be advised.
To enable selected Trainees to present their research at this event, they'll receive:
- return economy airfares to the event city from the closest major airport in the region they're representing
- accommodation
- official acknowledgement and a certificate
Award recipients will be invited to publish their abstracts in the Internal Medicine Journal or Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health RACP Congress supplement.
Apply
Read the terms and conditions for awards and prizes valued up to $5000 before you apply.
Your abstract should conform to the prescribed Trainee Research Awards Abstract Guidelines. Abstracts that do not conform to these guidelines will not be accepted.
All applications must be submitted through the online application portal. You may submit as many abstracts as you like in separate applications, however, only one of your abstracts may be selected for presentation.
Your research may have been undertaken anywhere in Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand or overseas. However, you must apply under the region in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand that you will be residing in at the time of the regional events.
Apply
The College Conflicts Of Interest Policy and Privacy Policy apply to the applicants and recipients.
Regional Presentations
Regional events will be held between October and December 2024. Further details will be provided as soon as possible.
The following events are confirmed:
| Region |
Adult |
Paediatric |
| WA |
Wednesday 27 November, 7.00 pm at the RACP Perth Office |
Friday 8 November at 12 noon as part of the Child Health Research Symposium at Perth Childrens’ Hospital, 15 Hospital Avenue, Nedlands in the level 5 auditorium |
| NT |
Saturday, 12 October 2024 as part of the NT Annual Scientific Meeting
|
| Vic |
Thursday, 31 October 2024, 7.00 pm at the RACP Melbourne Office
|
| SA |
Saturday, 2 November 2024 as part of the SA Annual Scientific Meeting
|
| Tas |
Friday 8 November 2024 as part of the Tasmanian State Conference in Launceston
|
| Qld |
Tuesday, 26 November 2024 at the RACP Brisbane Office
|
Selection criteria (regional events)
- You must have contributed strongly to the concept and execution of your abstract and presentation, with preference given to primary authors.
- Presentations are assessed on:
- content — originality, significance and importance
- presentation — clarity of verbal communication, use of visual aids
- how well they contribute to the discussion
- Works or projects included in the submission that are unpublished or have been published within 12 months before submission will be considered.
Presenting advice
Presenting is an intimidating but invaluable aspect of research. For trainees presenting their work or considering submitting their work in the future, previous adjudicators have provided their reflections that may assist you in communicating your research findings effectively.
Bolster your conclusion
While every clinical study needs a primary outcome, it's valuable to see an attempt at looking at this in another way. It can be tempting to associate cause and effect but also easy for consumers of research to discount associations as meaningless. However, appropriate use of statistical methods like a multivariate logistic regression can strengthen audience confidence in the presented conclusion.
Understand your stats
Much clinical research nowadays is conducted with a statistician as part of the team. As statistical methods increase in complexity, it can be difficult for trainees without formal statistics training to convey the statistical methods of their presented research. As the presenter of the work, it's essential that you at least understands why the employed statistical methods were selected over others and attempt to present the statistical analysis in a conventional manner rather than having to fall back on describing consultation with a statistician.
Describe the relevance
The purpose of clinical research is to improve the quality of medical care in terms of effectiveness, access or cost. Understanding the ‘point’ of a research project is what audiences are trying to do in any research presentation. Making this easy for them improves the quality of a presentation. If clinical research has resulted in a change in practice or has made a difference in lives of people, it should be described in the abstract.
Basic science research may not have a clear link back to patient benefit, which makes it even more important to describe its relevance. This can take the form of suggesting the type of clinical research that should now be undertaken as a result of the benchtop work or what benefits patients may expect from continued work along the line of inquiry.
Explain your role
Research in the 21st century is a team sport and most clinician-researchers generally fall on the modest side of the personality spectrum. When presenting an abstract, particularly in a forum such as the Trainee Research Awards, describing your role personalises the work and makes it much easier for your audience to engage with you and your work.
Selection process
- The selection panel assesses all abstracts to ensure they meet the required standard to fulfill the selection criteria.
- Selected applicants will be invited to give an oral presentation of their abstract at their regional event.
- Each presenter is allocated 10 minutes maximum for their presentation and 2 minutes for questions and answers.
- A judging panel can select up to 2 trainees in each region — 1 trainee per category (adult medicine or paediatric medicine).
- The judging panel reserves the right not to select a representative from their region if no submissions presented meet an acceptably high standard.
Contact
If you have any enquiries about award eligibility and application requirements, contact RACP Foundation.
For enquiries about regional presentations, contact your local RACP office.