IAMRA
IAMRA Gearing Up for 13th International Conference on Medical Regulation
Registration is now open for the International Association of Medical Regulatory Authorities' (IAMRA) 13th International Conference on Medical Regulation, to be held in Dubai, UAE, October 6–9, 2018. The theme of the conference is “Empowering Regulation with Innovation and Evidence.”
Four sub-themes have been established for this year's conference, including Innovative Regulation Models, Medical Workforce, Safe Practice and Quality, and Medical Education.
Within each of the themes, a wide range of presentations and discussion areas have been established:
Innovative Regulation Models
Governance, including hearing the public's voice
Right-touch regulation
Competency-based regulation
System-based regulation
Research and data-mining systems enabling evidence-based regulation
Medical complaints management
Regulation design and continuous improvement — challenges and the way forward
Medical Workforce
Immigration and migration: ethics and practicalities
Global regulation
Physician wellness, including the aging physician
The changing culture of medical practice, including working hours and bullying
Impact of regulation on physicians
Fitness to practice
Safe Practice and Quality
Access to safe care through effective regulation
Continued competency and revalidation of skills
Identifying and acting on poor performance/conduct
Opioid prescribing
Non-traditional models of care, including telemedicine and genomics
Unorthodox practice
Medical Education
What makes a good graduate?
Initial competence
Understanding professionalism
Interprofessional learning
The conference venue will be the Dubai World Trade Centre, considered an important destination point for business tourism in the Middle East. The Trade Centre hosts more than 500 events and welcomes more than three million visitors from 160 global markets every year.
Early bird registration discounts will be in place until August 1, 2018. To receive the early bird registration rate, attendees will be required to pay registration fees in full by August 1, 2018. To register at a discounted member rate, delegates must be a representative of a current IAMRA member.
For a complete listing of registration fees and for more information about the conference, please visit www.iamra.org.
Source: IAMRA2018.com website
United Kingdom
GMC Gears Up to Support Extra International Doctors Wanting to Work in the UK
Hundreds more overseas physicians are applying to work in the UK each year, according to _gures recently released by the General Medical Council (GMC) — placing new pressures on the GMC's examination process for licensure.
The GMC, which assesses the skills of non-European Union doctors who want to join the UK medical register, is having to adapt to deal with the increased demand in the numbers applying to take the exam. The GMC reported that last year nearly 3,000 doctors travelled from across the world to its offices in Manchester, England, in order to take the practical-assessment examination that enables physicians to work in the UK. This year it expects more than 5,000 doctors to take the exam.
...THE GMC GENERALLY BELIEVES THAT INCREASED INTEREST TO WORK IN THE UK IS WELCOME NEWS.
As a result of demand for the multiple choice and practical Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board (PLAB) exams, the GMC is now adding additional test dates on weekends — a move aimed at supporting the increased supply of physicians into UK practice.
While the increased numbers put pressure on the UK's testing capabilities, the GMC generally believes that increased interest to work in the UK is welcome news for the medical workforce. A report last year titled “The State of Medical Education and Practice in the UK” suggested that the supply of new physicians to the UK is not keeping up with changes in patient demand.
Despite the number of international physicians applying to join the UK medical register now increasing, there is still some way to go to ensure it can meet challenges in demand to make up the shortfall, according to the GMC. This is partly due to a drop in medical students at UK universities in recent years and greater uptake of flexible-work arrangements and physicians taking career breaks.
Some overseas physicians who have met UK requirements are ready to work but are prevented from doing so by difficulties in securing a visa, according to the GMC, which recently called on the government to address the issue so that skilled physicians are able to start working.
To help physicians who trained outside the UK face challenges adapting to working in an unfamiliar environment, the GMC offers a free, half-day “Welcome to UK” practice workshop, held at locations across all four UK countries.
“Starting to work in a new country can be extremely challenging for a doctor, regardless of how experienced they are. The workshops we hold aim to ease the transition of adapting to working in a new culture and share the experiences of doctors who discuss things they wish they had known when they started working here,” said Jane Durkin, GMC Assistant Director of Registration.
“While we continue our work to support doctors who are new to the UK, and to provide a route to working here for those who are suitably qualified and who want to come, we still need legislative change,” she said. “We need to be able to remove the bureaucratic barriers that make it difficult for foreign-trained doctors to work in equivalent roles in the UK.”
Source: GMC news release, April 10, 2018
National Training Surveys Ask UK Physicians About Burnout
As part of this year's national surveys of physician attitudes and opinions, the GMC is asking trainees and those who train them a series of questions related to “wellbeing and the impact tiredness and workload have on them.”
According to the GMC, this is the first time it has ever addressed the topic of burnout with specific questions in the national training surveys, which seek the views of nearly 55,000 physicians in training and 45,000 senior physicians who act as trainers.
Last year's surveys found that more than 40% of trainees rated the intensity of their work as “heavy” or “very heavy” and that 22% felt short of sleep while at work.
It also revealed the extent to which trainers had difficulty balancing their training roles with their daily duties as practicing physicians, and that 75% of them worked beyond their target hours each week.
Source: GMC news release, March 19, 2018
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