The path to becoming an emergency physician: An overview of Australasian College for Emergency Medicine emergency department training options.

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Emergency medicine training is one of the most flexible specialty training programmes in Australasia. The basis of this flexibility is the curriculum framework, which outlines the competencies expected of both trainees and FACEMs. ACEM does not dictate how those competencies are achieved, treating their trainees as self-directed adult learners. It is therefore expected that trainees will choose training positions to ensure they meet their training objectives. ACEM trainees often choose to spend part, or even all, of their training attached to a large base hospital, who assist with external rotations, often termed the hub-and-spoke model. Trainees are also free, however, to seek out rotations that will fill their knowledge or competency gaps, or to find innovative solutions for rotations that have become bottlenecks in bigger, hub-and-spoke model centres. In this article we explore the options available for ACEM trainees to complete their ED-based training requirements.