WA Rural Paediatrics Training Pathway Update

From Graeme Maguire Director of Medical Education for WA Country Health Service (WACHS):

I’m pleased to share with you the commencement of the WA Rural Paediatric Training Pathway scoping project.

The WA Rural Paediatric Training Pathway is a two-year WACHS‑supported, Commonwealth Flexible Approaches to Training in Expanded Settings (FATES) funded and WACHS Medical Education Unit‑based initiative. It will work in partnership with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) to scope the development of a WACHS‑led, rurally based paediatric training pathway with an initial focus on Basic Paediatric Training.

The Pathway aims to support rural‑linked, inclined, committed and curious early career doctors with an additional WACHS-led rural-focused vocational medical training pathway. It joins our established WACHS rural generalist, intensive care, psychiatry and adult physician pathways and our recently launched scoping project for rural emergency medicine training (WA Rural Pathway for Emergency Medicine (WARPEM)).

Our aim is to strengthen WACHS’ paediatric training capacity, to continue to ‘grow our own’ rural medical workforce and to enhance, support and retain our long‑term rural specialist paediatric workforce. Ultimately this will allow us to deliver and advance high quality care for country WA communities including children, adolescents and young adults and their families.

A key component of the Rural Paediatric Pathway will be its role in liaising with Perth Children’s Hospital and other metropolitan Health Service Providers and the RACP. This engagement will support access to required metropolitan training rotations, alignment with RACP training requirements, and the development of high‑quality, sustainable paediatric training opportunities across both rural and metropolitan settings.

Leadership for the Rural Paediatric Pathway will be provided by our two part-time inaugural Pathway Directors of Clinical Training (DCT): Dr Melanie Thompson (Pathway Strategy) and Dr Kristen Lindsay (Pathway Training).

For those of you who don’t already know these two Broome-base paediatricians, Mel obtained her MBBS from Monash University in 2002, followed by Fellowship of the RACP (General Paediatrics) in 2011. She completed a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University in 2012 and has worked as a Consultant Paediatrician in the Kimberley since 2012. Mel also supports the University of Notre Dame Australia medical school program and brings extensive experience in paediatric leadership, student supervision and research. Kristen obtained her MBBS from the University of New South Wales in 2009 and completed her Fellowship of the RACP (Paediatrics & Child Health Division) in 2022. She is also completing a Master of Health Professions Education at UWA. Since 2022, Kristen has practised as a Consultant Paediatrician in the Kimberley. Kristen brings experience in clinical leadership and research and was closely involved in the recent RACP curriculum refresh for general paediatrics. The project team is further supported by Piper Marsh (Senior Project Officer) and Alex Ellis (Medical Education Officer) based in our Central WACHS Medical Education Unit.

The team is currently focused on scoping the key enablers, barriers and opportunities relevant to developing a rural basic paediatric training pathway. This foundational work will inform future pathway design and implementation.

For further information or to contact the project team, please email ruralpaedspathway@health.wa.gov.au