Big year ahead with new college offerings

This is an eventful year for our college with, among many other things, the introduction of two new diplomas and a Reconciliation Action Plan. The ANZCA Annual Scientific Meeting in Sydney will also be an educational event not to be missed.

New Diplomas

This year we will be launching two new educational offerings in the form of diplomas. They have completely different target audiences but are both aimed at addressing an essential requirement in the modern healthcare system.

The Diploma of Rural and Generalist Anaesthesia (DipRGA), a collaboration between ANZCA and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP), has launched with an intake of trainees in February.

Congratulations to councillor Associate Professor Debbie Wilson and her team for bringing this project online to replace the Joint Consultative Committee on Anaesthesia qualification with a more contemporary, nationally consistent education model.

The new one-year training program is targeted at ACRRM and RACGP trainees and fellows seeking formal training and certification in anaesthesia.

The graduates will be certified to anaesthetise children to age five but we have partnered with the Society of Paediatric Anaesthetists of New Zealand and Australia (SPANZA) to create an advanced certificate that allows children aged between three and five years to be cared for.

ANZCA is the recognised standard setter for anaesthesia in Australia and New Zealand and I'm proud we have led this program.

Our second offering, to be released later this year, has the promise of being a gamechanger.

Perioperative medicine is the multidisciplinary, integrated care of patients from the moment they decide to have surgery until they achieve their optimal outcome.

We aim to produce perioperative medicine specialists who will coordinate the steps in the patient’s perioperative journey with shared decision making at the core.

Anaesthesia is now so safe the postoperative risk is 1000 times greater than the intraoperative risk. Prevention and management of postoperative complications will be one of the most obvious benefits of the widespread introduction of a perioperative medicine specialist into the care framework.

The Diploma in Perioperative Medicine (DipPOM) has been created in collaboration with the College of Intensive Care Medicine (CICM), the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners (RNZCGP), RACGP and ACCRM.

The Perioperative Medicine Steering Committee, chaired by Dr Sean MacManus and councillor Dr Vanessa Beavis, is to be congratulated for creating such a collaborative environment for each college to engage and contribute so effectively.

Our clinical diploma, the first of its kind, will consist of six online modules, clinical immersions and workshops undertaken over one to two years.

This is a major undertaking of the college and has placed us at the forefront of this evolving and developing specialty.

It's interesting to compare these two offerings. The DipRGA has a predominant focus on the intraoperative care of relatively well patients requiring minor surgery in rural and remote locations whereas the DipPOM is targeted at the perioperative period of higher acuity patients with complex comorbidities requiring major surgery.

While at opposite ends of the clinical spectrum both are important in our contemporary healthcare model. Many of you may also be aware of the recent challenge with specialty medical colleges using the term “diploma' which remains unresolved.

I am pleased to report at our recent meeting of the Council of Presidents of the Medical Colleges (CPMC), unanimous support for allowing accredited medical education providers such as ANZCA to continue to award diplomas. The CPMC is calling for changes to the relevant Australian federal legislation so colleges can continue to award diplomas. Watch this space.

Rap

We finally have our RAP in place thanks to the efforts of the RAP Working Group chaired by FPM Board member Dr Susie Lord. This is an important step for the college and I encourage you to check out the details at www.anzca.edu.au/safetyadvocacy/indigenous-health/reconciliation-action-plan, including the fantastic artwork created for us.