Medical Training Survey

The Medical Board of Australia has previously announced that it will run a Medical Training Survey (MTS) in order to better understand the quality of medical education in Australia.

Please visit MedicalTrainingSurvey.gov.au for more information on the survey.

What is the Medical Training Survey about?

The MTS collects feedback from doctors in training in Australia to:

• better understand the quality of medical training in Australia
• identify how best to improve medical training in Australia, and
• recognise and deal with potential issues in medical training that could impact on patient safety, including environment and culture, unacceptable behaviours and poor supervision.

Who can do the survey?

We want all doctors in training in Australia to do the survey. This includes interns, hospital medical officers, resident medical officer, non-accredited trainees, postgraduate trainees, principal house officers, registrars, specialist trainees and international medical graduates (with Provisional or Limited registration). It also includes career medical officers who intend to undertake further postgraduate training in medicine.

When is the survey run?

The MTS runs from August to early October each year.

How do I access the survey results?

The MTS results are available in the Results section of the MTS website. The results can be accessed in a variety of formats:

1. High-level snapshot – you can compare state/territory responses with the national response by selecting the ‘High-level snapshot’ tab
2. Annual results and reports – these can be downloaded as PDFs via the ‘Report and results’ tab. These include:

• National report
• State and Territory report
• Specialist Medical college report
• Doctor in Training by cohort report
• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander report

3. Create your own report – you can create your own tailored report by using the advanced filters and/or comparison tool - by selecting the ‘Create your own report’ tab in the results menu. You can view your tailored report onscreen or save it as a PDF or Excel document.

How does the Board know who to send the survey to?

The Board and Ahpra do not have information on who is a doctor in training. We ask medical practitioners at renewal of general registration whether they are a doctor in training. Medical practitioners who have stated they are a doctor in a training will receive a survey at the end of the registration renewal. 

Interns and other medical practitioners with provisional or limited registration are automatically included.

The survey will be open from August to early October each year.

Who administers the survey?

The Board and Ahpra has contracted EY Sweeney to administer the survey. EY Sweeney will analyse the information and provide reports.

The Board and Ahpra will not receive any information that identifies individuals.

Survey questions

We developed these with our expert advisors and with other stakeholders. A copy of the survey questions can be found on the MedicalTrainingSurvey.gov.au website.

Project governance

The Board is working with experts in the medical education and training sector in Australia on this important project. We have two groups to guide this work:

• A Steering Committee to manage the hands on work to develop and deliver the survey, and
• A Consultative Forum to make sure the survey is strengthened by input from doctors in training and other experts including specialist colleges, employers and jurisdictions, the Australian Medical Council and the AMA.

Guiding principles

We’ve settled on these guiding principles for the MTS:

1. Quality improvement: The MTS is a quality improvement tool, to strengthen medical training in Australia.
2. Safe and confidential: Medical trainees and supervisors can safely and confidentially participate in the MTS. Participants’ data will be de-identified in any reporting of results, and only de-identified data will be provided to the Board and Ahpra.
3. Focused on training: The core focus of the MTS is on post-graduate medical training.
4. Reflection and feedback: The MTS encourages participants to reflect on their medical training and teaching and provide feedback safely to support continuous improvement. Reflective practice is a cornerstone of good medical practice and of the Professional Performance Framework.
5. Access: The MTS will be relevant to medical training and not onerous to complete. It will be accessible online and easy to use, to encourage participation.
6. Reporting and using results: The results of the MTS will be published in the interests of transparency. Specialty and jurisdiction specific reports from MTS data will be generated as far as possible, while assuring participant confidentiality. Stakeholders will apply survey results to improve medical training.
7. Participation: The annual MTS will evolve, initially seeking feedback from doctors in training. It aims to reduce the need for other surveys about the same issues.

We will keep referring to these principles to keep us on track as we develop the survey.

Get involved

If you have any specific questions, feedback or are interested in being part of the ongoing work on the Medical Training Survey then please email us at [email protected] and keep reading about what we’re doing by visiting the MedicalTrainingSurvey.gov.au website.

Or alternatively, you can get in contact with your stakeholder representative from the Consultative Forum (please see membership list in the Resource section below)

Resources  

MTS Survey Questions

There are five versions of the MTS, each tailored to a different group of doctors in training. Most survey questions are common across the surveys. You can access a copy of the survey questions below.

• Medical Training Survey - Survey Questions