Day 2 ponderings from the PME forum

This is the third year that we have attended the National Prevocational Medical Education forum, alongside some 300 delegates from a variety of different interest groups.

Because this year I didn’t have the responsibility of speaking I felt it was easier to step back and think about why such a number of people meet around what is such a small time in the career of a doctor.

Prevocational training is largely defined as the post graduate (pre-specialty) years a doctor serves after completing medical school. In the olden days it was known as ‘internship’ and ‘residency’. Not a long time, and becoming shorter as the race is on for limited training places with the various colleges, and an abundance of keen doctors all vying for these places.

When I went through these years at the start of this decade, there were three main questions doctors often pondered whilst traversing what disappears in the blink of an eye:

1. Why did I decide to be a doctor?
2. Where’s the kudos?
3. How do I get into a training program?

And chatting to peers during the breaks today, it appeared that these questions are as relevant as ever.

In no way am I minimising the importance and value of this forum, certainly not, but I feel that the issues raised and the discussion generated is as equally applicable to medical students and especially registrars, who could be starting their college training as early as in their PGY2 year. These concepts include leadership, doctor’s health and wellbeing, and the tenuous balance between education and service provision. It would be nice to see the audience widened to encompass these areas as well, notwithstanding the practicalities of this and the interfaces involved.

No flies on Virgin as CPD staff no longer fly on Qantas

Greetings from the 14th National Postgraduate Medical Education forum, which starts today on the Gold Coast, Queensland.

We have been attending this conference for the past few years, and last year presented our stunning results from our Present to Pass® courses to a keen audience in Hobart. This year we have come to hear about the latest innovations in medical education, as well as talk to the JMOs about training in Australia in 2009.

We’ll let you know that we think of the content as the conference gets underway!

Meanwhile, we recognise we are a small business, but nevertheless, have always supported Qantas when we need to fly for our workshops and training sessions. But we have made a decision to switch our loyalties after a series of what we see to be examples of poor customer service. We often need to travel to holiday destinations on the eastern seaboard of Australia, prime venue locations for many conferences in this country. But we are so dismayed by how we are treated by Qantas when purchasing code share flights with Jetstar.

It seems that when it suits Qantas the two airlines operate separately. So despite the fact that we book online with Qantas, use Qantas frequent flyer points, and are eligible to access the Qantas Club lounge, we must check in at Jetstar and not be able to access priority service that we pay for.

We are only a small business, but we are going places, and we are discerning when it comes to choosing the carrier that will take us on our journey. So we will switch allegiances to other carrier to many holiday destinations in Australia.

In the meantime as they say, sit back and relax, and check up in a couple of days for the latest on our view of PMCQ!