A top doctor believes specialty colleges are looking into more Canberra Hospital training programs, as another unit loses its accreditation.
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The hospital offers training programs across different departments, allowing doctors to become specialists.
In order to offer those programs, a hospital must be accredited by specialist training bodies.
The plastic surgery and fetal medicine units have had accreditation revoked, while the child-at-risk health unit and obstetric and gynaecology department training programs are considered at risk.
The sheer number of programs at Canberra Hospital that are on notice is "very unusual", ACT branch president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Walter Abhayaratna, said.
He is "confident" more departments had accredited training programs at risk of being revoked.
"I'm confident that there are more departments where there are queries about the [training], where the specialty colleges are taking a look," he said.
"The number of programs that are being questioned by the colleges as to their quality and the colleges really saying the quality needs to improve, that is very unusual.
"Feedback includes the fact that there is something wrong here."
Patient safety is compromised when training programs fail to meet standards, Dr Abhayaratna said.
It deters high-quality junior doctors from wanting to train or work in Canberra.
"Junior doctors will then be asking whether they should stay in the hospital ... because it may compromise their ability to go into a training program elsewhere," he said.
"You won't get the same quality of trainees applying to the organisation [and] what is already a difficult process to fill spots for junior doctors [will be] even more challenging."
From 2013 to 2023, every single ANU medical school graduate who applied for a role at Canberra Health Services was offered a job.
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People working within Canberra Health Services needed time to build the hospital's capacity to train junior doctors, Dr Abhayaratna said.
"The identity [of CHS] needs to change to reflect that organisation's core roles include the training of our workforce, which will in turn enhance the quality of our clinical services," he said.
"The people on the ground need the resources, and the time and space to be able to do it, whereas now they are at the whims of the government.
"All their work seems to be filled with reaction instead of doing things that build sustainable workforce [and] training."
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- Email lanie.tindale@canberratimes.com.au or lucy.bladen@canberratimes.com.au. Protonmail is secure and encrypted: lanietindalejourno@protonmail.com.au
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