This month, the College submitted its feedback to Ahpra on its consultation regarding the proposed draft revised registration standard granting general registration to Australian and New Zealand medical graduates on completion of Internship. 

ACRRM supported the key changes for which it has been advocating, as these should make it easier for more interns to undertake their training in remote, rural and regional areas. The new arrangements replace the previous more prescriptive framework with mandatory training terms in a range of specialised fields with a more flexible approach with the following four more broadly defined mandatory terms: 

• undifferentiated illness patient care 
• chronic illness patient care 
• acute and critical illness patient care, and
• peri-procedural patient care. 

The College believes this approach should provide flexibility to enable more internship training to occur in smaller hospitals, GP clinics, ACCHOs and other settings, outside of the major cities. 

The College has been actively engaged at all stages of the review of the Prevocational Framework which has been ongoing for several years and thanks the Future Generalist Committee in particular for their ongoing advice and support for this work. 

Going forward the College will work with Ahpra and the Australian Medical Council (AMC) to ensure that the implemented framework is able to provide a seamless pathway from medical school through to FACRRM training as a Rural Generalist. It will also be advocating for incorporation of mechanisms to facilitate positive exposure to work in primary care settings.