February 2025

In this month's Update:

• Chair's message
• Medical Board of Australia news
  • Hello medical students
  • Expedited pathway opens to psychiatrists and anaesthetists from similar health systems
  • Interested in joining a state and territory board of the Medical Board of Australia?
  • Training data now ready to explore
  • Accreditation: providing high-quality education and training
• News and alerts
  • From the Coroner – monitoring sedated patients
• Medical regulation at work
  • Latest tribunal decisions published
• Contacting the Board

Chair’s message

I am honoured by my appointment as Chair of the Medical Board of Australia. Effective regulation involves prioritising public safety, supporting doctors to maintain high standards and taking action only when needed to keep patients safe. As a Board, we will strive towards a kind, fair and timely regulatory system, and meet our serious responsibilities with diligence and care. I look forward to working with the medical profession and the stakeholders who represent you in meeting this challenge in the years ahead.

Dr Susan O’Dwyer
Chair, Medical Board of Australia

Medical Board of Australia news

Hello medical students

Sending a shout out to medical students – did you know you’re registered with the Medical Board of Australia? From now on, we’re sharing our newsletter for all registered medical practitioners with you.

Please don’t unsubscribe!

Our regular Update newsletter helps you stay across current professional standards and regulatory changes, as you work towards joining the medical profession. We will be a feature of your whole professional life, because everyone who practises medicine is registered with the Board.

Student registration is automatic and free. We have no role in your academic progress, and don’t hear about your academic results.

You might want to learn how to avoid professional pitfalls by reading about the published tribunal decisions and our ‘lessons learned’ articles.

You can dig into the results of the annual Medical Training Survey if you want to know what medical trainees think about their workplace or specialty.

We’ll be sharing guidance for specific areas of practice, like telehealth, cosmetic surgery and maintaining professionalism while using AI and social media in medicine.

We’ve published some educational resources for students – accessible in four online modules on regulation and professionalism. They focus on communication in practice (a key skill for a good doctor) and dispel some myths and misconceptions about regulation. The modules are free to access on the Medical Board website.

Each year, we’ll let final year students know when applications for provisional registration are open, so you can be ready to start the intern year. 

Expedited pathway opens for psychiatrists and anaesthetists from similar health systems

Internationally trained psychiatrists and anaesthetists from similar health systems can now access a new fast track registration pathway to work in Australia.

Under the Expedited Specialist pathway, specialist international medical graduates (SIMGs) with specialist qualifications in anaesthetics from the UK and Ireland, and in psychiatry from the UK, can apply for registration directly to Ahpra and the Medical Board of Australia.

Eligible internationally qualified specialist obstetricians and gynaecologists will be able to access the pathway in the months ahead. General medicine, general paediatrics and diagnostic radiology are the next priorities for the Expedited Specialist pathway, later in 2025.

The gateway to the pathway is a list of pre-approved qualifications (the Expedited Specialist pathway: accepted qualifications list).

More information is available on the Board’s Expedited Specialist pathway page. 

Interested in joining a state and territory board of the Medical Board of Australia?

We are open for applications from registered medical practitioners and community members from the Australian Capital Territory, Queensland and Northern Territory.

Applications close Sunday 23 February 2025.

To apply and for more information visit Ahpra’s Board member recruitment page.

Training data now ready to explore

Six years’ data from the Medical Training Survey (MTS) is now accessible and searchable with the online reporting tool on the MTS website.

Static reports detailing 2024 results nationally and by college, jurisdiction, gender and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees are published. You can also create a tailored report in pdf or excel format from 2024 results or create trend reports comparing data across years since 2019.

A one-page infographic report makes national data easily accessible. Results for 2024 for colleges and jurisdictions are available in the same format.

Visit the MTS website to access the 2024 results, reports and dashboard.

Accreditation: providing high-quality education and training

The Board has approved the following:

Medical school programs of study

Specialist medical college programs of study

News and alerts

From the Coroner – monitoring sedated patients

The Medical Board has been asked to remind medical practitioners about monitoring sedated patients following a coroner’s case with inquest in Victoria.

The patient had been admitted as an involuntary inpatient in a psychiatric ward in a Victorian public hospital and had been prescribed multiple antipsychotic medications as well as benzodiazepines and methadone.

While the Coroner was unable to determine the cause of the patient’s death, he made a number of important findings, and recommendations for the Medical Board of Australia, the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia and the public health service.

The Coroner found that the failure of medical and nursing staff to comply with the hospital’s guidelines for monitoring sedated patients and inadequate monitoring of the patient was a significant systemic error. He found that had the patient received appropriate monitoring, in compliance with hospital policy, he may have survived.

The Coroner asked the Board to:

• remind medical practitioners about the potential cumulative effect of multiple sedative medications
• remind medical practitioners of the importance of adhering to health service provider guidelines aimed at ensuring that clinicians monitor sedated patients more closely and on a more frequent basis until they are ambulant
• advise medical practitioners to consider the benefits of using an oximeter to monitor heart rate and oxygen saturation levels of sedated patients. The Coroner noted that the use of an oximeter is an achievable, practical and reasonable measure for clinicians to take in observing or monitoring sedated patients in inpatient psychiatric units.

There were also other recommendations for the health service about staff training and culturally competent and safe care.

The finding is published on the Coroners Court of Victoria website.

The Board’s Code of conduct has guidance on good patient care and culturally safe care and is on the Board’s website.

Medical regulation at work

Latest tribunal decisions published

There are important lessons in tribunal decisions about registered medical practitioners. The Medical Board of Australia refers the most serious concerns about medical practitioners to tribunals in each state and territory. Here is a recently published decision:

• a Queensland GP has been suspended for inappropriate prescribing (Medical Board of Australia v Torres).

Publication of panel, court and tribunal decisions

Ahpra, on behalf of the 15 National Boards, publishes a record of panel, court and tribunal decisions about registered health practitioners.

When investigating a notification, the Medical Board may refer a medical practitioner to a health panel hearing, or a performance and professional standards panel hearing. Under the National Law, panel hearings are not open to the public. Ahpra publishes a record of panel hearing decisions made since July 2010. Practitioners’ names are not published, consistent with the National Law.

Summaries of tribunal and court cases are published on the Court and tribunal decisions page of the Ahpra website. The Board and Ahpra sometimes choose not to publish summaries, for example about cases involving practitioners with impairment.

In New South Wales and Queensland, different arrangements are in place. More information is available on Ahpra’s website on the How to raise a concern about a health practitioner page.

Contacting the Board

The Medical Board of Australia and Ahpra can be contacted by phone on 1300 419 495.

For more information, see the Medical Board of Australia website and the Ahpra website.

Lodge an enquiry form through the website under Contact us at the bottom of every web page. 

Mail correspondence can be addressed to: Dr Susan O'Dwyer, Chair, Medical Board of Australia, GPO Box 9958, Melbourne, VIC 3001.

More information

Please note: Practitioners are responsible for keeping up to date with the Board’s expectations about their professional obligations. The Board publishes standards, codes and guidelines as well as alerts in its newsletter. If you unsubscribe from this newsletter you are still required to keep up to date with information published on the Board’s website.

Comments on the Board newsletter are welcome, send your feedback and suggestions to newsletters@ahpra.gov.au.

For registration enquiries or contact detail changes, call the Ahpra customer service team on 1300 419 495 (from within Australia).