Eligibility

Find out who's eligible to complete the Survey.

Trainees

In 2020, eligible trainees were:

• registered in an RACP training program during the periods:
• Australia | Term 3 from 3 August to 1 November 2020
• Aotearoa New Zealand | Quarter 4 from 24 August to 29 November 2020
• training in an accredited setting in Australia or Aotearoa New Zealand

Ineligible trainees are on extended leave, interrupted training or undertaking one of these training pathways:

• Clinical Diploma of Palliative Medicine
• Nuclear Medicine (RANZCR trainees)
• Nuclear Medicine Positron Emission Tomography
• Time-limited intensive care pathway to Fellowship (Adult Internal Medicine or Paediatrics & Child Health)

Educators

In 2020, eligible educators were:

• Rotation Supervisors
• Educational Supervisors
• Advanced Training Supervisors
• Training Program Directors (such as Directors of Paediatric/Physician Education and Directors of Advanced Training)
• Network Training Program Directors

during the periods:

• Australia | Term 3 from 3 August to 1 November 2020
• Aotearoa New Zealand | Quarter 4 from 24 August to 29 November 2020

From 2020, trainees and educators in the Public Health Medicine and Occupational and Environmental Medicine training programs were also eligible to participate in the survey.

Confidentiality

We’re committed to upholding the confidentiality of the data we collect. The protection of trainee and educator identities is a priority. Controls have been established to ensure confidentiality, privacy and security are maintained.

Access to survey data is restricted. Training Providers, RACP members, College Bodies and external researchers cannot access data that identifies a participant.

Before we launch the Physician Training Survey, we provide names, contact details and Member Identification Numbers (MINs) of all eligible trainees and educators to ENGINE. This is required for them to send you survey links and reminders. It also ensures the data quality for managing concerning responses.

Read ENGINE’s data protection and privacy policy to find out how they process personal data. ENGINE staff abide by the Australian Market and Social Research Society (AMSRS) Code of Professional Behaviour.

Anonymised data

Access to identifiable data is restricted to ENGINE. They’ll anonymise the data before providing it to us by removing or altering information that is reasonably likely to identify an individual.

Anonymisation occurs once data quality assurance processes are complete and concerns have been managed. It includes 2 steps:

1. remove personal identifiers like name, phone, email and replacing with unique identifiers
2. remove or change other information that allows identification like a rare characteristic of an individual or a combination of unique characteristics

Following anonymisation, ENGINE separates the data set into 2 encrypted files. The MIN and unique code are stored in one file. The demographic and response data are stored with the unique code in another file. This significantly reduces the chance of identifying individuals and protects against security breaches.

We only receive anonymous data including unique codes, demographic data, question responses and comments.

Data control methods

The chance of identifying individuals is reduced further by data aggregation and disclosure control methods. This includes cell suppression and changing the classification scheme to mitigate breaches from data tabulation. Data is not reported where there are less than 5 participant responses.

With patient or doctor safety concerns, questions with less than 5 respondents may be reported to a setting. This allows us to fulfil our duty of care. To protect participants, this data is anonymised and the number of respondents is not disclosed.

To protect survey respondents, these controls are in place:

• data is only reported in aggregate (for example, as a percentage)
• responses are redacted to prevent confidentiality breaches by comparing data across tables
• benchmarking data contains 3 or more entities in the comparison group

Recipients of survey data are Training Providers, health services or jurisdictions. They receive data to encourage training improvements and allow benchmarking.

Recipients should focus on addressing the issues raised and never attempt to identify an individual. Indicator data allows comparison of Training Programs and setting performance. It will not be released if there are less than 3 Training Providers benchmarked. Dashboard pages are redacted if the risk of identification is high.

Data

We’re committed to protecting your personal information. Read our Privacy Policy to learn about how we disclose your personal information.

Data security

ENGINE takes all reasonable steps to protect your information from loss, modification, disclosure, misuse, unauthorised access and destruction. They use a secure portal for online surveys.

Take care when emailing ENGINE through its website as it may not be secure. Read ENGINE’s data protection and privacy policy.

When anonymous data is provided to us, it will be encrypted and stored in a firewall and password protected server.

Data retention

ENGINE will destroy or anonymise your personal information as soon as reasonably practicable and once it is no longer needed to complete data analysis.

The RACP will retain the anonymous data for at least 5 years and use it in trend analysis for future Physician Training Surveys (NHMRC, 2019 PDF).

Concerning responses

We have a duty of care to ensure the safety of patients, our trainees and educators. Some survey questions can reveal safety concerns. Our managing a concern process identifies these concerns, provides support to respondents and prompts Training Providers to address the concerns.

When concerning responses reach a defined threshold, we contact Directors of Physician or Paediatric Education and training settings. We request a written response on how the potential concern has been locally investigated and validated and how it will be addressed.

Define a concern

A concern is something that is likely to adversely impact:

• workplace training environment and functions, affecting patient or doctor safety or the quality of the training environment
• health and wellbeing of an educator or trainee

Concerns are managed at 2 levels:

• individual respondent level
• overall Training Provider level

Individual respondent level

We understand that the survey may raise concerns about your health and wellbeing and we want to support you to get the help you need. You’ll be asked to complete a follow up section of the survey where you may:

• consent for ENGINE to organise a confidential follow-up with a professional counselling service, and
• provide your contact details to facilitate this follow-up

If you consent, ENGINE will share your contact details with Converge International, a 24/7 confidential counselling, support and advice service. Your identity is not shared with the service unless you’ve given consent. ENGINE doesn’t share this information with us or your employer. We’re only informed of the number of referrals to Converge International.

Your concern will never be made public by us or by ENGINE.

You can consent within the Survey to be notified if multiple respondent concerns are communicated to your Training Provider.

Training Provider level

We inform Training Providers of survey questions with potentially concerning responses and corresponding scores.

Information about the number of survey responses is not released where there are less than 5.

Where at least 5 responses have been received for a provider, the following data will be reported:

• survey question with the potential concerns
• corresponding aggregated score for the question
• percentage of respondents registered at the setting who participated in the survey

Process for managing multiple concerns at a Training Provider

Results

View a summary of the 2020 Physician Training Survey results (PDF).

Explore the results of the 2018 and 2020 Physician Training Surveys through the members-only interactive dashboard:

RACP members dashboard

If you’re a Director of Physician or Paediatric Education or you’ve been issued with a login due to your role in physician training, login to the training setting dashboard:

Training setting dashboard

Previous years

2018 | Physician Training Survey Summary Report (PDF)
2017 | Pilot Physician Training Survey key findings (PDF)
2017 | Pilot Physician Training Survey: Supervisor and Trainee findings (PDF)