2023 INTERNS: OPPORTUNITY & GROWTH

AMA (NSW) spent the last week of January welcoming our newest cohort of doctors.

Over the last several years the number of medical interns in NSW has been steadily increasing. In 2023, almost 1,100 medical graduates joined the health workforce – up from 1,074 in 2022 and 1,041 the year before that. One-third of these interns (396) were placed in rural and regional NSW hospitals.

“Interns seeking to complete their internship in our regions were able to apply through the Rural Preferential Recruitment pathway and, this year, 176 Rural Preferential intern positions were available – an increase of 13 positions from 2022,” said Minister for Regional Health, Bronnie Taylor.

AMA representatives held events at 20 different locations including hospitals at Westmead, Concord, RPA, RNSH, Lismore, Gosford, St George Hospital, Liverpool, Wollongong, Prince of Wales, Tamworth, Tweed Heads, Wagga Wagga, Newcastle, Blacktown, Orange, St Vincent’s, BankstownLidcombe, Macquarie University Hospital, and Hornsby. In addition, we held two intern social nights in Wollongong and Sydney to introduce the new interns to the AMA and their new colleagues.

An integral part of these presentations was reassuring our newest doctors that the AMA (NSW) will support our members throughout their medical career in any matters they need assistance with, ranging from bullying and harassment to legal counsel, to unpaid overtime.

Our most recent AMA (NSW) Hospital Health Check survey of 1,766 doctors-in-training revealed 72% of doctors-in-training had reported working more than five hours of unrostered overtime in an average fortnight, up from 60% in 2021 and 49% in 2020. However, 73% of doctors-in-training received all of their unrostered overtime payment.

Meanwhile, 37% of respondents reported experiencing bullying and 27% of experiencing intimidation at work in 2022, this is an appreciable decrease from 50% and 37% in 2021, respectively. While there is clearly still work to do in improving the experience of doctors-in-training in NSW hospitals, our Hospital Health Check surveys show that there is at least movement in the right direction.

AMA (NSW) will be launching its 2023 Hospital Health Check survey in May this year and seeking responses from doctors all stages of training to inform us about the conditions in their hospitals. These responses will help inform our advocacy for rest of the year.

Good luck to all our doctors-intraining in 2023. dr.