AMSS/FMSS Internship Submission

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Dear All

Thank you to all who submitted replies to the Adelaide Medical Students' Society (AMSS) and Flinders Medical Students' Society (FMSS) Internship Survey. You can view the resultant joint Adelaide Medical Students’ Society (AMSS) and Flinders Medical Students’ Society (FMSS) Internship Submission (the Submission) below  (online viewer) or download it here (PDF).

This Submission was sent to the South Australian Institute of Medical Education and Training (SA IMET) on Thursday 17 February 2011. In summary, this Submission utilised extensive data to demonstrate that medical students in South Australia wanted:

1. Single-hospital internships versus network-based internships;
2. One-year contracts versus two-year contracts;
3. A non-merit based internship allocation system for medical graduates;
4. Preservation of the current priority ranking in the optimised preference allocation system.

This Submission has met with some significant success in ensuring medical student preferences are preserved. The details of this success are outlined below.

Following its submission to SA IMET, the Submission was subsequently sent to the relevant internal SA IMET Working Party where it underwent electronic review. The Working Party made a number of formal recommendations to the SA IMET Council. From the perspective of a medical student, the key recommendations made by the Working Party with reference to the original SA IMET Review of Internship in South Australia review were that:

1. Network-based internships: should be adopted. The Working Party suggested a three network model (being: RAH, Modbury, WCH | TQEH, LMH | FMC, Repat, Noarlunga) be adopted. Numerous suggestions were made to ensure that interns would have appropriate provision of education and welfare. Furthermore in this system it was suggested interns would spend 4 of 5 terms at their ‘home hospital’ and then conduct one rotation to a ‘linked hospital’, which would minimise the moving around required;
2. Two-year contracts: should not be pursued at this time. Many stakeholders have apparently confused this issue. There was deemed to be insufficient support to warrant moving ahead with this concept at this time; and
3. Intern allocation systems: were not addressed by the Working Party, presumably because of insufficient support for change. Therefore intern allocation systems in South Australia are unlikely to be changed in the immediate future.

The SA IMET Council met on the evening of Tuesday 22 February 2011 to, amongst other things, consider the recommendations made by the Working Party. The AMSS was represented by me, as the President. The FMSS was represented by Raj Chakrabarty and Seb Haiart, the Fourth Year SA IMET Representative and the Third Year SA IMET Representative respectively.

The nature of the recommendations made by the Working Party meant that discussion largely focussed around the merits of network-based internship; the issues of introducing two-year contracts or changing allocation systems were not addressed because the Working Party did not recommend that these changes be considered any further. During the discussion of the proposed changes to internship in South Australia, the AMSS and the FMSS presented the Submission; this was very well received by the Council. The student preference for single-hospital internships was highlighted. Subsequent views were expressed and finally voting took place on the matter.

The SA IMET Council resolved through a vote to ‘endorse the concept of a network approach to intern training, but recommend further scoping occur for possible implementation in the future’. This effectively means that the Council generally supports network-based internships ‘in principle’ but wishes to conduct further research before deciding on the details of the networks.

If one observes the data in the Submission, this an overall positive outcome for medical students in South Australia; comparing the student preferences with the outcomes from the SA IMET Council Meeting is enlightening:

1. Single hospital internships: failed. It is likely that, based on the endorsement noted above, network-based internships will be implemented at some point in the future. Nonetheless the student concerns regarding continuity of education, assessment and welfare are actively being addressed. SA IMET is also fully aware of the concerns regarding excessive travel and the problems associated with interns who have significant family commitments;
2. One-year contracts: achieved.
3. Non-merit based allocation: achieved.
4. Preservation of current priority ranking in optimised preference allocation system: achieved.

We believe that this represents a good outcome for medical students. We did not manage to achieve everything that students indicated they preferred, but the majority of their wishes have been ensured. Furthermore student concerns regarding a network-based internship are known to SA IMET and we believe that they will be addressed, if and when network internships are actually introduced.

We would reiterate that this is an overall positive result.

Once again, we sincerely thank all the students that contributed to the survey that guided the Submission. Please contact me (Tom Crowhurst on 0439 810 678 or at president@amss.org.au) if there are any questions or concerns regarding this summary. We will continue to update this page with any major developments.

Kind regards,

Tom Crowhurst

Click here to view and download the PDF version (1.2MB) or view it online below.