From Sri Lanka to Oberon – Dr Ganesan Senthan’s journey into rural General Practice

Embracing rural generalism and the RVTS pathway – Dr Ananda Hagoda Arachchi

Standing at the heart of rural healthcare in Far North Queensland – Dr Ashton Kelly

Advanced Skills Training

The Advanced Skills Training Posts Rural Generalist and General Practitioner Program (AST Program) is targeted at rural generalist registrars, general practitioner registrars and Fellows of ACRRM or RACGP. The purpose of the program is to provide access to innovative new Advanced Skills Training (AST) posts and to utilise funding to support and attract doctors to these positions. This initiative will support posts that meet community need across all jurisdictions.

2025 and pre-approved 2026 AST Posts vacant opportunities:

• Paediatric AST post at Alice Springs Hospital
• Mental Health AST based at Shepparton with outreach
• Remote Medicine AST with the RFDSSE – midyear start can be based in Broken Hill, Gilgandra, Warren or Condobolin for general practice component with outreach to remote communities. Possibly more flexibility in where participant based just needs to be an RFDSSE practice.

Contact: Karyn Sherman, AST Project Officer, via [email protected] or 0735173369.

Courses

• Sense of Safety for Practitioners Foundation Course – 10 CPD hours: Enhance your clinical practice, practitioner wellbeing and client outcomes with a Sense of Safety Approach to care. More details >>

Surgery, Anaesthetics and/or Obstetrics

This program supports procedural rural doctors in MMM 3-7 for skills maintenance and upskilling in anaesthetics, obstetrics and surgery covering both formal (courses) and informal (clinical attachments) delivery modes. It is in the form of a grant of $20,000 per doctor per financial year based on 10 days training at $2,000 per day.

Further details can be found at: health.gov.au/internet/main/publishing.nsf/Content/work-pr-rpgp

or acrrm.org.au/continuing-development/assistance-and-grants or racgp.org.au/the-racgp/faculties/rural/rural-procedural-grant

Emergency Medicine

Doctors practising emergency medicine in rural and remote areas can access grant payments for upskilling in emergency medicine. The grant payment is calculated on a maximum of $6,000 per GP per financial year for 3 days of upskilling or skills maintenance activities. The total grant payable will be based on a rate of $2,000 per day.

Further details can be found at: racgp.org.au/the-racgp/faculties/rural/rural-procedural-grants or acrrm.org.au/support/grants/rpgp

SA: Rural Doctors Workforce Agency – 08 8234 8277

VIC: Rural Workforce Agency Victoria – 03 9349 7800

NSW: Rural Doctors Network – 02 4924 8000

WA: Rural Health West – 08 6389 4500

QLD: Health Workforce Queensland – 07 3105 7800

NT: Primary Health Network Northern Territory

• • Darwin 08 8982 1000
  • Alice Springs 08 8950 4800
  • Katherine 08 8982 1040

TAS: HR+ – 03 6332 8600

VIC: General Practitioners (GP) grant program | health.vic.gov.au

QLD: Queensland GP Incentive

TAS: GP Incentive Package