Learning opportunities for Australian prevocational hospital doctors: exposure, perceived quality and desired methods...

To survey prevocational doctors working in Australian hospitals on aspects of postgraduate learning.

470 prevocational doctors in 36 health services in Australia, August 2003 to October 2004.

Cross-sectional cohort survey with a mix of ordinal multicategory questions and free text.

Perceived preparedness for aspects of clinical practice; perceptions of the quantity and usefulness of current teaching and learning methods and desired future exposure to learning methods.

64% (299/467) of responding doctors felt generally prepared for their job, 91% (425/469) felt prepared for dealing with patients, and 70% (325/467) for dealing with relatives. A minority felt prepared for medicolegal problems (23%, 106/468), clinical emergencies (31%, 146/469), choosing a career (40%, 188/468), or performing procedures (45%, 213/469). Adequate contact with registrars was reported by 90% (418/465) and adequate contact with consultants by 56% (257/466); 20% (94/467) reported exposure to clinical skills training and 11% (38/356) to high-fidelity simulation. Informal registrar contact was described as useful or very useful by 94% (433/463), and high-fidelity simulation by 83% (179/216). Most prevocational doctors would prefer more formal instruction from their registrars (84%, 383/456) and consultants (81%, 362/447); 84% (265/316) want increased exposure to high-fidelity simulation and 81% (283/350) to professional college tutorials.

Our findings should assist planning and development of training programs for prevocational doctors in Australian hospitals.