1.2 Medical Specialist Training Taskforce

Following the working party's advice, AHMAC established the Medical Specialist Training Taskforce (MSTT), reporting to AHMAC through the Australian Health Workforce Officials' Committee (AHWOC) and convened by the Australian Government.

AHMAC also endorsed the following principles and incorporated them into the taskforce's terms of reference.

• Specialist training should take place across a range of health care settings.
  
  
• The public and private sectors, the Australian Government, state and territory governments and specialist training authorities should ensure that adequate specialist training opportunities are available.
  
  
• All jurisdictions and employers should contribute to new training arrangements on the basis that they are sustainable over time and that any additional costs are offset by corresponding financial and other benefits.

The taskforce included representatives from a range of relevant organisations including the Australian Government, jurisdictional health authorities, the Australian Medical Workforce Advisory Committee, the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, the Australian Medical Council and the Australian Medical Association.

In early 2004, the taskforce set up three expert groups to look into:

• educational needs, training requirements and learning environments
• learning network components and implementation
• governance and structures.

The findings of these expert groups were used by the taskforce to make recommendations about a broad training model and related issues in their paper on a 'Systematic framework for medical specialist training'.

Some of the key points in this paper were the need to:

• Provide training in settings that match the current and longer term service delivery requirements of the community - including public hospitals, private hospitals, private practices, community-based practice, rural settings and non-clinical settings.
  
  
• Enable specialist trainees to rotate through a range or network of settings and not be disadvantaged by loss of industrial entitlements.
  
  
• Require that specialist trainees seek employment within the network of settings through a principal health care service entity (such as a hospital) and undertake training rotations as per college curricula.
  
  
• Ensure that the employing health care service entity is responsible for providing specialist trainees with salary and associated employee entitlements within the network.

The taskforce recommended a number of further activities to AHMAC, including:

• a risk assessment detailing the benefits and costs, including financial implications, associated with the revised training model
• an exploration of the implications for service delivery in public settings
• a review of training programs to better align training curricula with settings for delivery.