Abstract
Background/Objectives Trainee medical officers (TMOs) applying for entrance into medical and surgical training programmes within Australia are initially assessed on their curriculum vitae (CV). Previous research reports that 14/47 training programmes publish publicly available standardised CV scoring criteria. Allocating points towards rural exposure (including during formative years, medical school, and postgraduate placement) is vital to ensuring the diversity of successful applicants and for endorsing fellows of the college to continue practicing in underserviced areas. The objective of this study is to determine the relative weighting or rural exposure within publicly available standardised CV scoring criteria.
Methods All Australian and New Zealand medical and surgical specialties, outlined by the Australian Medical Association, were included, and their college, society, and faculty websites were searched for publicly available standardised CV scoring criteria.
Results 8/14 specialty training programmes allocate points towards rural exposure within standardised CV scoring criteria, with a mean weighting of 13.7% The ANZAN training programme allocates zero points towards rural exposure. Contrarily, the RANZCO, RANZCOG and CICM training programmes allocate the three highest weighting towards rural exposure: 28.5%, 24.6% and 14% respectively.
Conclusion/Discussion The relative weighting of rural exposure within the ANZAN training programme is significantly less than other specialty colleges. The deliberate and strategic construction of these CV criteria may have significant implications for the future medial rural workforce in Australia. Future development of standardised CV scoring criteria should consider point allocation towards rural exposure and related activities.
