Dr Liz Rushbrook, Chief Medical Officer

Important changes for registered Medical Practitioners from January 2023

From 1 January 2024 all Australian doctors (except interns and PGY2 doctors who are participating in a structured program[1]) are required to comply with the new Continuing Professional Development (CPD) registration standard. More information can be found here or see the infographic. 

This means that from January 2024, any doctor other than an intern must be registered with and meet the requirements of an accredited CPD program. Accredited CPD programs are called a “CPD home” and are listed on the Australian Medical Councils CPD home webpage and on the Medical Boards webpage. 

All specialist college CPD programs are accredited CPD programs – which means that Specialists, Specialist trainees (registrars) and Specialist international medical graduates under assessment do not need to change anything if they are already participating in their accredited college CPD program. If they are not already participating, they will need to join a CPD home. 

Junior House Officers (JHO), Senior House Officers (SHO) and Principal House Officers (PHO) will need to register with a CPD home for 2024. At this time, there is one organisation accredited as a CPD home with more to be accredited in the very short term. 

If you are not already a member, I encourage you to join a CPD home well before the end of this year.

Professional Development Plans

Part of all CPD programs require a Professional Development Plan (PDP).  This mirrors Metro North Health requirements for an in-date PDP. Metro North accepts PDPs that are aligned with CPD home programs (including training plans for those doctors in training), and CPD home programs will accept Metro North branded PDPs. 

If you are yet to finalise your PDP for this calendar year, I encourage you to access a SMO/VMO PDP template or Standard PDP template today from the Metro North Medical Services Website or the People in Culture Website.

Further information about how to do a PDP is available here.

Invitation to participate in an evaluation study of a health and wellbeing application (app)

A collaboration between NSW Health, the Black Dog Institute and Med App is a nationwide evaluation study of the Shift application (app).  The Shift app was developed to support the mental health and wellbeing of Doctors in Training. Participation is available to all doctors in training and involves a baseline questionnaire, download and use of the Shift app for 30 days, and then two 20-minute follow-up questionaires.

Participation in the evaluation study is completely voluntary and participants can withdraw at any time.  The Metro North Med App will send a notification / invitation to participate in the coming days. I encourage Metro North Doctors in Training to consider participation.  

[1] In 2024, Metro North Health does not have an accredited structured program for PGY2 doctors.  Accreditation will be sought during 2024 in line with the New National Framework for Prevocational (PGY 1 & PGY 2) Medical Training (2024+)

Liz.