What is the Medical Training Survey?

The Medical Training Survey is a national, profession-wide survey of all doctors in training in Australia. It is a confidential way to get national, comparative, profession-wide data to strengthen medical training in Australia.

By getting feedback from doctors in training, the survey will deliver robust national data that will help improve medical training. Aggregated, anonymous results will help identify potential issues in medical training that could impact on patient safety, so these can be addressed.

The Medical Training Survey:

  • is quick to complete and accessible online by phone, tablet or laptop
  • is open during the medical renewal period from August to September
  • is backed by doctors in training, employers, educators, the AMA and regulators and run independently by research agency EY Sweeney
  • is confidential, only aggregated data will be reported
  • has been designed as a quality improvement tool to help strengthen medical training.

The Medical Training Survey will be run each year to get feedback from doctors in training in Australia to:

  • better understand the quality of medical training in Australia
  • identify how best to improve medical training in Australia, and
  • recognise and deal with potential issues in medical training that could impact on patient safety, including environment and culture, unacceptable behaviours and poor supervision.
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The guiding principles for the Medical Training Survey are:

  1. Quality improvement: The MTS is a quality improvement tool, to strengthen medical training in Australia.
  2. Safe and confidential: Medical trainees and supervisors can safely and confidentially participate in the MTS. Participants’ data will be de-identified in any reporting of results, and only de-identified data will be provided to the Board and Ahpra.
  3. Focused on training: The core focus of the MTS is on post-graduate medical training.
  4. Reflection and feedback: The MTS encourages participants to reflect on their medical training and teaching and provide feedback safely to support continuous improvement. Reflective practice is a cornerstone of good medical practice and of the Professional Performance Framework.
  5. Access: The MTS will be relevant to medical training and not onerous to complete. It will be accessible online and easy to use, to encourage participation.
  6. Reporting and using results: The results of the MTS will be published in the interests of transparency. Specialty and jurisdiction specific reports from MTS data will be generated as far as possible, while assuring participant confidentiality. Stakeholders will apply survey results to improve medical training.
  7. Participation: The annual MTS will evolve, initially seeking feedback from doctors in training. It aims to reduce the need for other surveys about the same issues.
Who can do the survey?

All doctors in training in Australia can do the survey. This includes interns, hospital medical officers, resident medical officers, non-accredited trainees, postgraduate trainees, principal house officers, registrars, specialist trainees and international medical graduates. Career medical officers who intend to undertake further postgraduate training in medicine can also participate.

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