Welcome to the June 2010

Doctors' e-Cohort Study e-Newsletter

Message from the Doctors' e-Cohort Study team...

Welcome to 2010, we hope you have had a good start to the year!  This newsletter contains some important information about the direction of the study in 2010.

We have spent the months since the close of the baseline survey cleaning and analysing data and beginning to write papers for publication. We have also been working with our industry partner, Queensland Health, to plan a sub-study to be conducted in 2010 using our specialised e-cohort technology.

 

Attention:  Existing participants

The full longitudinal cohort study of all groups over five years is not continuing beyond 2010

Approximately 800 doctors and 850 medical students participated in the Doctors' e-Cohort Study between April 2008 and August 2009. Unfortunately, these numbers are too small to be considered a representative sample of doctors and medical students in Australia. In addition, the demographic characteristics of the sample were not representative of the national medical workforce. While the age distribution of the cohort was comparable to that of the national medical workforce, the distribution of gender and state of registration were not representative.

We therefore regret to announce that the full longitudinal cohort study of all groups over five years will not be continuing beyond 2010. Thank you for your time and participation.  The preliminary results from Survey 1 were published in the November 2009 newsletter. Further results will be published in the near future.

There is potential for a follow-up study in 2011 on illicit drug use.

We would like to once again thank all our participants most sincerely for their involvement in and support of the study and we wish you well for the future.

 

New Directions in 2010...

Health and Wellbeing of medical students a key issue...

The Health and Wellbeing of medical students was identified as a key issue at the Big Issues Plenary Session panel discussion during the Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) Convention in Brisbane last year. The Doctors' e-Cohort Study therefore focussed on medical students in 2010. The second round of recruitment was opened to students in Year 1 of the MBBS program at The University of Queensland on the 19th January this year.  Approximately 230 students registered for the study, representing 46% of the Year 1 cohort.

 

Prevocational doctors key to workforce planning...

Our industry partner, Queensland Health, has identified the career decisions of doctors in the prevocational training years as a key factor in effective workforce planning, particularly in servicing areas of doctor shortages. In 2010, we will be using the e-cohort technology to conduct a small study of Interns, JHOs, SHOs and PHOs from hospitals in Brisbane, Townsville and Mackay. 

The study will aim to illuminate the intentions of early career doctors in terms of their preferences for speciality and geographical location. It will also investigate the progression of prevocational doctors who are International Medical Graduates (IMGs) through their various training pathways to full registration. A secondary aim of the study will be be to assess the perceived quality of the learning experiences to which prevocational doctors are exposed.

Development of the survey is currently underway and recruitment will begin later this year.

 

Conference presentations to date...

2010 Primary Health Care Research Conference

Askew, D., Schluter, P., Dick, M., Turner, C., Wilkinson, D., Schultz, D. & Hansar, N. Bullying in the Australian medical workforce: more common than you think! (15 minute paper)

GP'09 A Doctor for all seasons

Dick, M., Askew, D., Turner, C., Schluter, P., Wilkinson, D., Rego, P. & Hansar, N. A Comparison of the general health and preventative health behaviours of Australian general practitioners with other Australian medical practitioners (15 minute paper)

2009 GP & PHC Research Conference: Driving Change

Askew, D., Dick, M., Hansar, N., Schluter, P., Turner, C., Ozolins, I. & Wilkinson, D. The Doctors' e-Cohort Study: A good idea but ahead of its time? (15 minute paper)

2008 GP & PHC Research Conference: Health for all?

Dick, M., Turner, C., Wilkinson, D., Stewart, S., Schluter, P. Rego, P. & Askew, D. Recruitment and retention of the Australian medical practitioner workforce - a longitudinal electronic cohort study (poster)

 

Opportunities for Research...

Use of illicit drugs in medical students and doctors

One of the questions in Survey 1 related to the use of illicit drugs. About 150 respondents indicated that they had used illicit drugs in the last 12 months. The majority of these indicated that they were comfortable participating in a follow-up study that explored the prevalence of illicit drug use in the medical profession.

This project would involve reviewing the existing literature, analysing the existing data and conducting the follow-up survey and would be suitable for an Honours student.

Please email the Project Manager, Denise Schultz, if you are interested in this or another research project with the Doctors' e-Cohort Study.

 

Content of this newsletter

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