AHPRA is asleep at the wheel.
It’s clear Doctors aren’t getting adequate training.
For a doctor, Professor Mark Morgan who claims to be an expert on Immunology, to not understand what Immune Imprinting is just goes to show how out of touch and undereducated the Australian Medical Profession is.
More at: https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/authors/mark-morgan
Community Affairs Legislation Committee
15/02/2024
Estimates
HEALTH AND AGED CARE PORTFOLIO
Australian Health Practitioner Regulation
Senator RENNICK: Could I get some information about the make-up of the staff at Ahpra, in regard to how many medical experts, doctors, specialists, you have working at Ahpra?
Mr Fletcher: We employ clinical advisers, including medical clinical advisers, in all of the professional areas that we regulate. We regulate 16 health professions. In addition, we have a number of staff who have a clinical background in a range of areas. I’d need to take it on notice to give you the exact breakdown of that, but I can certainly provide that for you.
Senator RENNICK: Okay. In a recent COVID inquiry, I was interviewing Professor Mark Morgan, who is an expert from the Royal Australian College of GPs. I asked him about immune imprinting, and he wasn’t aware of it. He said he’d never heard the term. I was just surprised that he wouldn’t have heard that term given that he was dealing with immunology. What do you do in regard to ensuring that doctors stay up to date with training?
Mr Fletcher: Medical practitioners have a requirement to maintain a program of continuing professional development on an annual basis. That is actually a requirement of registration, so there is a registration standard that underpins that. On an annual basis, they have to declare that they’ve met that standard and those requirements. The bar for that has been recently increased. It’s around 50 hours a year that’s required, at a minimum, with additional requirements for any medical practitioners with specialist medical registration. The Medical Board of Australia has introduced the concept of a CPD home, so every medical practitioner has to have a home, which might be one of the specialist medical colleges or it might be another provider of those CPD services, and they have to do CPD that is relevant to the area of practice that they work within. It can be a range of different activities but with a focus, obviously, on staying up to date with their knowledge and skills and also improving the quality and safety of patient care.
