GP Training in and for Aboriginal Contexts:
Exploring Some Issues

Kevin Parriman, Doug Lloyd, Emma Kennedy, Simon Morgan; NTGPE

Abstract for presentation at GPET Conference, 2003
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Commonwealth’s initiatives to regionalise GP training in Australia (1) has led to an imperative for training providers to be more responsive to local needs. One desirable result is to improve our understanding about how to prepare and support medical practitioners for primary health care provision in and for Aboriginal communities. A greater appreciation of this issue is likely to contribute to better health outcomes for indigenous Australians. However, this set of issues is complex. It has only recently emerged strongly as a national consideration for training medical professionals (2), despite its national relevance (3, 4).

This presentation will be used to raise a series of values, principles and practices that are important for respectful and culturally safe approaches to GP training in the Northern Territory and national contexts. It will also consider how to embed training for Aboriginal contexts in core RTP practices, and how to match the respective needs and aspirations of each GPR, GPS and community. These considerations will be used to broaden our collective understanding about the issues we face, and build on present work and understandings (For example, 5-7, and that of GPET’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Training Reference Group). They will also be used as another impetus for further discussions and sharing of approaches on a national basis through other Regional Training Providers, community organisations and GPET.

Outcomes we hope to achieve from the presentation include better understandings of:

• how to prepare medical practitioners in and for Aboriginal contexts, including who should participate, and how to know we have been successful;
• how to maintain and improve intercultural sensitivity and safety; and
• how to share good policy and practices and make progress on our approaches.

Abstract for presentation at GPET Conference, 2003
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Numerous approaches have been used to provide education and training for learners who are distant from providers, and many of these have been used for medical education at student, junior doctor, ‘specialist’-training and/or CME level (1-4). The range includes a number used now for GP education and training.

This presentation will consider a conceptual model that may provide an additional level of authenticity in medical training to the mixed-mode approaches presently in use in providing GP education. In particular, we will describe a method that seeks to incorporate into vertically integrated GP education the experiences and insights available from medical educators who presently practice in very remote clinical practice.

The approach seeks to have more pervasive input from remote medical educators in ways that complement input from colleagues in regional nodes or centers, and urban settings. The input is designed to create a cohesive medical educator team with a composition that mirrors the number of, and circumstances experienced by registrars and supervisors throughout NT’s vertically integrated programs. We expect it will also enhance the development of comprehensive policies and practice for remote and Aboriginal-context training
Does the natural experiment have merit? Does it also have applicability in other contexts?

We will present a case to indicate that the model both

• would add value to present approaches in rural and remote settings, and
• may have applicability in other contexts, including metropolitan ones, for other under-represented populations of trainees and trainers.

We will also present preliminary data on the perceptions of those participating in the trial implementation of such a model.

Further information >>>