About the program

The Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) has a strong generalist focus. The general medicine department, which is the largest unit, has about 80-110 inpatients admitted under our service at any given time. GACM advanced trainees have exceptional access to high quality rotations across all the required fields, but especially within the extremely broad and integrated general medicine teams.

Training structure

RDH supports up to 15 GACM advanced trainees, who can be rotated through 7 general medicine rotations, and 9 speciality rotations.

General medicine terms:

• 5 rotations in the general medical teams 1-5.
• 1 rotation seconded to Katherine Hospital.
• Perioperative medicine registrar.

8 rotations are dedicated GACM-trainee allocated subspecialty terms:

• Renal
• Cardiology
• Haematology
• Endocrinology
• Respiratory
• Palliative care
• Neurology
• Rheumatology/immunology

On commencement, trainees are generally offered one specialty and one general medicine term per training year to meet GACM training requirements.

Structure of the general medical service

General Medicine comprises 5 inpatient teams (Med 1-5) staffed by a consultant, advanced trainee registrar, BPT registrar, RMO, and 2 interns, with each team having an average of 15-20 inpatients per day.

The teams follow a ‘take day’ model and are ‘on-take’ on a rolling roster every 5 days.

The average number of patients admitted to the service each on-take day is 15-18.

The rapid response team of the hospital is also the responsibility of the ‘on-take’ team in conjunction with ICU support.

Additionally, each medical team has a geographic region for which it provides an outreach service and has inpatient responsibility.

Each medical team also has its own outpatient clinic, which is attended by both the ward consultant and the advanced trainee.

Specialty terms

Specialty terms are governed by their respective units.

Cardiology, renal, and haematology are predominantly inpatient service models, whereas endocrinology, gastroenterology, respiratory, rheumatology, and neurology are predominantly outpatient-based services, providing a consult service to inpatients.

Most specialty terms have other registrars (advanced trainee and/or BPT) who share the workload.

Katherine Hospital

The GACM service of the Royal Darwin Hospital also provides a seconded general medicine advanced trainee to Katherine Hospital.

Katherine Hospital is staffed by highly dedicated general physicians and has a medical service staffed by BPTs from RDH and up to 2 general medicine advanced trainees.

How to apply

Applications for training positions are made from June to September each year, but applications and queries are welcome outside this window.

Contact

Recruitment team, DivMedRecruitment.THS@nt.gov.au

Dr Kaspar Willson, Head of General Medicine, Kaspar.Willson@nt.gov.au