G'day, my name's Aaron Hollins, I'm a GP and Medical Educator and Senior Lecturer with JCU.
Clinically I work at Doomadgee for Gidgee Healing and I also work here in Atherton for
GMT and JCU.
So look I got interested in public health when I was a junior doctor and I worked in
places like Doomadgee and Mornington Island and I realised that we needed to have a broader
look at what's happening with people’s health.
So once I completed my GP training I went onto undertake public health training as well,
which I've recently completed.
With my public health training I work for the Queensland Aboriginal and Islander Health
Council, as well as the Public Health Unit in Cairns.
This advanced skills training in population health is ideally suited to registrars who
want to stay in their rural and remote town, want to have a look at their community from
a broader perspective and also might have an interest in public health and further qualifications
in public health.
So you can do an advanced skills training in population health with ACRRM and they have
a well-recognised curriculum to do that.
For registrars enrolled with RACGP we need to contact the rural centre and get permission
from them to undertake advanced training in population health.
This advanced skills training in population health takes twelve months to complete.
You can take a bit longer, particularly because there are some requirements to do an epidemiology
course as part of that advanced training.
So registrars need to talk to their medical educator in their local node and apply through
the GMT placement process to do advanced skills training in population health.
They also then need to apply to their respective college.
So the assessment for advanced skill training in population health is mainly around a project
that you need to complete.
So that project is almost like a research project but it can also be a health promotion
project, it can be a community needs analysis or an audit of practice.
The other assessment that you need to do as part of this, a formative and summative supervisor
feedback and you also need to complete an epidemiology course.
Having done an advanced skill post in population health gives you really transferable skills
so you can work in any setting that you like in rural and remote Australia.
It's given you the skills to have a big picture look at what you're doing as part of your practice.
So keeping your skills current may involve completion of a Masters in Public Health or equivalent
but you can also do CPD through your respective colleges that do concentrate
on population health.
So whilst you're undertaking advanced skill training in population health you'll still
work in clinically.
This AST does allow you to take a step back and have a look at that bigger picture.
So you have an academic supervisor who has, has specialist qualifications in public health
or a Masters degree in Public Health as well as a clinical supervisor who has qualifications
in rural health.
So I undertook extra additional training in public health because I have a passion for
the bigger picture I guess.
So I felt by undertaking public health training I could make a bigger difference on a bigger scale
So registrars who do advanced training in population health they have broader skills
then just what the AST provides them.
They can do research, they can be very competent at auditing their practice
They will also be able to look at their community quite broadly
and take that with them where ever they go.
Doing advanced training in population health really equips you where ever you go to work
because it gives you those skills where you look at that big picture and look at what
the community needs.
One of the registrars who's done advanced training in population health went on to work
for the World Health Organisation in Geneva, so that's the sort of thing you can look at
if you undertake this training.