What is the Medical Training Survey?

The Medical Training Survey is a national, profession-wide survey of all doctors in training in Australia. It is a confidential way to get national, comparative, profession-wide data to strengthen medical training in Australia.

By getting feedback from doctors in training, the survey will deliver robust national data that will help improve medical training. Aggregated, anonymous results will help identify potential issues in medical training that could impact on patient safety, so these can be addressed.

The Medical Training Survey:

  • is quick to complete and accessible online by phone, tablet or laptop
  • is open during the medical renewal period from August to September
  • is backed by doctors in training, employers, educators, the AMA and regulators, with data independently analysed by research agency EY Sweeney
  • is confidential, only aggregated data will be reported
  • has been designed as a quality improvement tool to help strengthen medical training.

The annual Medical Training Survey is designed to get feedback from doctors in training in Australia to:

  • better understand the quality of medical training in Australia
  • identify how best to maintain and improve the quality of medical training in Australia, and
  • identify issues in medical training that could impact on patient safety, including environment and culture, unacceptable behaviours and poor supervision, to enable stakeholder action.
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The guiding principles for the Medical Training Survey are:

  1. Quality improvement: The MTS is a quality improvement tool designed to strengthen medical training in Australia.
  2. Safe and confidential: Participation is confidential and de-identified, with a clear framework for data use and protection. The system actively prevents identification of individuals or small groups.
  3. Focused on training: Post-graduate medical training is the core focus of the MTS.
  4. Reflection and feedback: The MTS encourages participants to reflect on their medical training and teaching and provide feedback to support continuous improvement. Reflective practice is a cornerstone of good medical practice and MTS participation is safe.
  5. Access: The MTS is relevant to medical training and not onerous to complete. It is accessible online and easy to use.
  6. Reporting and results: The results of the MTS are published online in static reports and through an online data dashboard. Specialty and jurisdiction specific reports from MTS data are generated as possible while assuring participant confidentiality. Stakeholders are encouraged to use MTS data to guide improvements to medical training.
  7. Participation: The MTS is Australia’s primary national survey of trainees, validated by strong trainee participation and support.
  8. Equity, diversity and inclusion: MTS responses identify inequities in training experiences, access to opportunities and exposure to unacceptable behaviours. Stakeholders are encouraged to use results to guide planning for safer, fairer, more inclusive training environments.
Who can do the survey?

All doctors in training in Australia can do the survey. This includes interns, hospital medical officers, resident medical officers, non-accredited trainees, postgraduate trainees, principal house officers, registrars, specialist trainees and international medical graduates. Career medical officers who intend to undertake further postgraduate training in medicine can also participate.

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