October 2024

In this month's issue:

• Chair’s message
• Medical Board of Australia news
  • Thanks for renewing your registration on time
  • Expedited Specialist pathway now open for international GPs
  • Changes to the Canada Competent Authority pathway category
  • New CPD home
  • Health checks for late-career doctors
• News and alerts
  • 3G network closure and emergency devices
  • Message from the Department of Health and Aged Care – Medical Costs Finder
• Medical regulation at work
  • Latest tribunal decisions published
• Contacting the Board

Chair’s message

Thanks to everyone who confirmed their CPD home in 2024. We’ll be in touch personally if you told us when you renewed your registration that you don’t yet have a CPD home or haven’t let us know which one you joined. You need a CPD home this year to log your 2024 CPD.

Dr Anne Tonkin AO
Chair, Medical Board of Australia

Medical Board of Australia news

Thanks for renewing your registration on time

This year, 93 per cent of eligible doctors renewed their registration on time.

Medical practitioners with general, specialist and non-practising registration were due to renew their registration by 30 September 2024. If you forgot to renew, you can do it in October, but a late fee applies.

Under the National Law, if you don’t renew your registration within one month of your registration expiry date, your name must be removed from the Register of practitioners, your registration lapses and you can’t practise medicine in Australia until a new application for registration is approved. This can take time.

Expedited Specialist pathway now open for international GPs

The Expedited Specialist pathway is now open for eligible general practice specialist international medical graduates (SIMGs).

GPs with international specialist qualifications from Ireland, New Zealand and the United Kingdom that are included on the Board’s Expedited Specialist pathway: accepted qualifications list can apply now.

The Expedited Specialist pathway is safe, faster and cheaper for eligible SIMGs.

It is designed for a small cohort of highly qualified specialist medical practitioners from comparable health systems, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Ireland, to allow these well-credentialed doctors to see Australian patients sooner.

A new self-assessment tool published on the Board’s website helps international medical graduates (IMGs) navigate pathways to registration.

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

The GP qualifications on the approved list were proposed by the GP colleges, the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) and the Australian College of Rural and Remoted Medicine (ACRRM), assessed by the Australian Medical Council (AMC) and approved by the Medical Board as substantially equivalent or based on similar competencies to an approved qualification. (Approved qualifications are the qualifications awarded by the accredited Australian specialist colleges.)

If an SIMG has a qualification on the list, they can apply directly to Ahpra for specialist registration, without an individual assessment from a specialist college.

There are strict safety checks and balances in place to make sure new specialists coming to Australia on this pathway are safe to practise.

Specialists on the Expedited Specialist pathway have to meet the same registration standards as all other specialists and doctors, including English language, criminal history and recency of practice requirements.

Each SIMG on the Expedited Specialist pathway will be supervised for six months by a registered specialist, have an orientation to Australia’s health system and do mandatory cultural safety education.

In December 2024, specific qualifications in anaesthesia, psychiatry, and obstetrics and gynaecology will be added to the Expedited Specialist pathway: accepted qualifications list.

The same rigorous qualifications assessment process, led by the AMC in consultation with specialist medical colleges, will determine which qualifications are proposed for inclusion on the list.

Specialist colleges from these specialties have been asked which specialist qualifications could be assessed for the pathway. The AMC will assess these qualifications against the Board-approved criteria and provide advice to the Medical Board, which makes the final decision on qualifications to be included on the Expedited Specialist pathway: accepted qualifications list.

Transition arrangements are in place for SIMGs who are eligible for the Expedited Specialist pathway. These apply to SIMGs who are already in the Specialist pathway, and to SIMGs who have a current application for limited or provisional registration in progress. More information on the pathway and the transition arrangements, including forms and FAQs, is published on the Board’s Expedited specialist pathway page.

The revised registration standard for specialist registration, which paves the way for SIMG reforms, has been approved by health ministers. More information on the new specialist registration standard, which came into effect on 21 October 2024, is on the Medical Board’s Specialist Registration page.

Changes to the Canada Competent Authority pathway category

We’ve made some changes to the existing Competent Authority pathway to reflect changes to medical licensing examinations in Canada.

The changes relate to Category C (see below) and will affect some international medical graduates (IMGs) from Canada interested in applying for medical registration in Australia via the Competent Authority pathway.

The Competent Authority pathway is for international medical graduates who have completed:

1. a qualification or assessment through an approved competent authority, and
2. a prescribed experience component in a competent authority country.

Category C of the pathway requires successful completion of the Licentiate examinations of the Medical Council of Canada (LMCC). During the COVID-19 pandemic, the MCC discontinued the Part II exam.

From 11 November 2024, applicants who have only completed the Part I exam must also:

• be a graduate of a Canadian medical school, or
• have successfully completed the National Assessment Collaboration (NAC) examination.

Applicants who have successfully completed the two MCC licentiate exams (and the experience component) will continue to be eligible for category C.

Read more in the news item on the Board’s website. For more detail see the Competent Authority pathway webpage.

New CPD home

A new accredited CPD home will open in November 2024.

Accredited by the Australian Medical Council (AMC), CPD Australia will be open to all doctors, becoming the 21^st CPD home in Australia.

Contact information for all AMC-accredited CPD homes, including all of the specialist colleges, is listed on the Board’s CPD page.

Health checks for late-career doctors

Thank you to the people behind the 200 + submissions to our consultation about possible health checks for late-career doctors.

The consultation is now closed, and we’re looking carefully at the thoughtful feedback from organisations and doctors.

We will publish the submissions in the months ahead – this process takes time as we have to make sure we meet requests for confidentiality and redact personal contact details.

Deciding on next steps will take time. We will update you as we map a path forward that best keeps late career doctors in safe practice.

News and alerts

3G network closure and emergency devices

From Monday 28 October 2024, Telstra and Optus will close their 3G networks. Devices that depend on the 3G network won’t work when it’s gone.

Affected devices include some in-home personal emergency alarms, insulin pumps and pacemakers that rely on the 3G network for voice calls and won’t be able to make Triple Zero (000) calls when the network is shut down.

People who use these devices will need to contact their service provider to see if their device is affected.

Approximately 200,000 people who use these devices do not know that they rely on the 3G network to function. We are asking medical practitioners to talk to potentially affected patients about the change and what they need to do to stay safe and connected.

More information is available on ‘3G is closing: check your tech’ on the AMTA website.

We are including this as a community notice. Further queries should be directed to the service providers.

Message from the Department of Health and Aged Care – Medical Costs Finder

The Department of Health and Aged Care is encouraging eligible specialists to participate in the Medical Costs Finder website – an Australian Government initiative to help patients find and understand typical costs for common private health procedures.

By participating, specialists can:

• help patients understand different factors that affect their private health treatment costs
• prepare patients to have an informed discussion about fees
• contribute to greater out-of-pocket costs transparency for patients across Australia.

Specialists from these specialties and areas of practice are included:

1. Cardiology
2. Cardiothoracic surgery
3. Gastroenterology and hepatology
4. General surgery (abdominal and gastrointestinal)
5. General surgery (breast)
6. Obstetrics and gynaecology
7. Ophthalmology
8. Orthopaedic surgery
9. Otolaryngology (ENT) head and neck surgery
10. Plastic and reconstructive surgery
11. Urology.

Specialists can register on the Medical Costs Finder portal to publish their indicative fees for selected services for display on the public website. There are help guides available on the portal.

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 are recently published decisions:

• a West Australian general practitioner has been reprimanded, had his registration suspended for five months and had conditions placed on his registration for failing to provide adequate assessment and care of a patient, breaching professional boundaries, as well as inappropriate prescribing and billing practices (Medical Board of Australia and Sachdev)
• a Victorian general practitioner has been reprimanded and had his registration suspended for three months for inadequate care of a patient addicted to sleeping tablets and for inadequate medical records (Medical Board of Australia v Kozminsky).

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 Anne Tonkin AO, 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).