RANZCR's Action Plan for Indigenous Health

The College’s Action Plan for Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health

Promoting culturally safe practice and growing our Indigenous workforce

The College is committed to improving health outcomes and wellbeing of Māori and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. During 2021, the College’s Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Executive Committee (MATEC) developed an Action Plan for Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health (the ‘Action Plan’). The Action Plan will enable the College to support the professions of clinical radiology and radiation oncology to contribute to equitable health and workforce outcomes for Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. It is now available on our website www.ranzcr.com/our-work/indigenous-health-and-engagement

The Action Plan consists of a series of considered and targeted activities. It has been divided into ‘foundational actions’ which will create an enabling environment for positive change to occur and those ‘actions’ associated with four pillars that MATEC has identified as being essential to this change process.

The four pillars are:

Education

Education on cultural safety is lifelong and reflective in nature so will be tailored across the entire training continuum, via the curriculum and CPD. We need to promote cultural safety at the workplace and training sites. One example of the way we will approach this is by revising training site accreditation standards to ensure that they are culturally safe environments to train and learn in.

Networking, collaboration and advocacy

The College will seek opportunities to take a leadership and advocacy role in this area. Building relationships and partnering with Indigenous health organisations can assist the College in developing long-term strategies. As reported in the last edition, we have recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the Australian Indigenous Doctors Association (AIDA) to promote a number of shared objectives.

Selection of trainees

The College is committed to increasing the number of Māori, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees. Our longterm goal is to achieve population parity in the clinical radiology and radiation oncology workforces. Improving cultural safety at the College and at training sites will be understood as essential to the success of this pillar, as it increases Indigenous trainees’ likelihood of success and retention. This year we were excited to launch our ASM Grant Program for Indigenous junior medical doctors or medical students to attend our 2021 RANZCR ASM to learn more about the specialties. Applications were received by four Aboriginal medical students and one Māori intern and all five were provided with free access to the 2021 ASM.

Mentorship

This pillar is essential to ensuring that the work carried out by the College results in positive structural change. We are working to support AIDA as they establish a non-GP Specialist Trainee Support Program.

Next steps

While the Action Plan is ambitious, work is already underway. MATEC considered what is within the College’s sphere of influence and control and designed the Action Plan to be both practicable and achievable. Much of the College’s governance has a role to play. To ensure its continued prioritisation, the Board has embedded the Action Plan in the College’s new Strategy. Both are to be implemented over the next three years.

The College acknowledges the many years of tireless work and advocacy undertaken by Indigenous Elders, Ancestors and Indigenous leaders. We recognise the many benefits to be gained from partnering with Māori and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples and will continue to find ways by which such partnering arrangements can be expanded and knowledge shared.

We want to promote the awareness that cultural safety is integral to clinical practice and encourage our members to self-reflect on how doctors’ biases may have an impact on how patients receive care and experience the health system. We do stress that cultural safety is a lifelong journey of self-reflection and understand how unsettling it can be to have no defined ‘end-point’.

If you are Māori, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and are interested in learning more about what supports are in place at the College or if you would like to discuss this work, please get in touch with Madeleine d’Avigdor, Senior Projects Officer at madeleine.davigdor@ranzcr.edu.au