Making a difference to workforce transition for interns

A core aim of medical student training is to make sure that medical graduates are prepared to start work safely as junior doctors working under supervision. The Preparation for Internship Survey began in 2017 and is a joint effort between the Australian Medical Council (AMC) and the Medical Board of Australia.

The survey is undertaken annually with graduates of Australian medical schools to improve how medical schools prepare graduates for internship, and the Medical Board and AMC address difficulties in the transition from medical school to the workplace, close potential gaps in training and avoid duplication between intern and medical school training.

The survey includes questions about eight skill groups, including core clinical skills, patient-centred care, documentation, hospital systems, procedural skills, self-management, team work, and professionalism.

From 2018 the survey included questions about programs specifically designed to prepare graduates for internship and overall preparedness, as well as gathering views on which factors were most effective in increasing preparedness for prescribing safely and for treating Indigenous patients.

The 2019 survey, run in May, was completed by 17% of interns in Australia. Consistent with previous survey results, respondents generally agreed that medical school prepared them for internship. In response to the question ‘Overall, I felt my medical education was sufficient to undertake the role and responsibilities of intern’, responses were:

Despite a lower response rate than hoped for, results were felt to be consistent with schools’ internal feedback mechanisms and broadly consistent with accreditation findings.

Results from the survey provide a national comparative view of medical education from the point of view of the end-user. It is evident in the results that medical schools have different strengths, and it is hoped that the survey will be useful as a quality improvement tool to support discussions between medical schools, local internship training providers and state and territory health networks about how to support the transition of graduates to internship.

Feedback from interns is already making a difference. Intern feedback from previous surveys is being used by:

• medical schools to review and improve how they support medical students transition to internship and share good practice
• the AMC and Medical Board to drive the scope of reviews of medical school accreditation standards and the National Internship Framework, and
• intern training accreditation authoriti8es and intern training providers to support the transition from medical school to internship.