The RACP committee chair wants a ‘relevant and modern’ curriculum to shape the future of rheumatology training.
Rheumatology is among a group of key specialties targeted by the Royal Australasian College of Physicians for a redesign of its advanced training curricula.
The college-wide Advanced Training Curricula Renewal Project aims to place more emphasis on competency in training, align all training programs with RACP curricula frameworks and update and rationalise existing curricula content.
The new curriculum includes sections on adult medicine and paediatrics and child health.
Dr Narainraj Kamalaraj, chair of the RACP Rheumatology Curriculum Review Group (CRG), and a rheumatologist in South West Sydney, said the draft was now open for feedback until 2 October. The full draft can be found here. There is also a consultation video available that provides more information about the development process and how to review the documents and provide feedback.
“We encourage feedback from the wider rheumatology community,” Dr Kamalaraj told Rheumatology Republic.
“I will also be available for three drop-in sessions for adult rheumatology and there will be representation from my paediatric colleagues on the CRG for two further drop-in session for paediatric rheumatology.
“All feedback will be collated and presented to the CRG for consideration in November for a final review and then the finalised curricula undergoes a process of approval by the Rheumatology Advanced Training Committee and other committees including the College Education Committee before implementation.”
He said rheumatology was part of the final and third wave of specialty development so the review group had benefited from seeing how other specialties have fared, including geriatric medicine and gastroenterology, “where informally feedback has been positive”.
“The [rheumatology] curriculum was last revised in 2013, that’s more than 10 years ago,” said Dr Kamalaraj.
“The process of renewal began at the end of 2023 after extensive scoping work. We expect a finalised set of new curriculum documents at the end of 2024 and subsequent implementation and change management over 12 months to officially rollout from early 2026.”
The process to date has included significant efforts by college staff and rheumatologists across the country to design learning goals, and learning, teaching and assessment programs for adult and paediatric rheumatology separately, he said.
“We selected a diverse team of adult and paediatric rheumatologists with broad representation across Australia and New Zealand, with I believe a good mix of more experienced and early career rheumatologists as well as advanced trainees with distinct viewpoints on how a modern curriculum for rheumatology should look,” he said.
Key priorities for learning goals were identified during the workshops, including futureproofing and avoiding overly prescriptive standards.
“Therefore, for those reviewing the documents for the first time my advice would be to not be overly worried if a particular disease or skill is not explicitly mentioned in the curricula documents as it may be encompassed more broadly elsewhere,” said Dr Kamalaraj.
“We were also somewhat constrained by RACP requirements for some elements of the curriculum, including having to list content alphabetically without prioritisation.
“The key message is that the curriculum document is not a checklist for trainees to tick off during training, but rather a reference or guiding document for supervisors and trainees to ensure key ‘learning goals’ are achieved and the ‘learning, teaching and assessment programs’ are the way we do that.”
He said the new curriculum moved towards programmatic assessment defined by more frequent lower stakes assessments for trainees that help determine decisions on progression through training at key stages of an advanced trainee’s learning journey.
“This is new for our curriculum but not new to the medical education space more generally as it is well established in undergraduate medical curricula,” he said.
“The RACP has assured the Curriculum Review Group that additional resources will be available to support trainees and supervisors with the rollout of the new curriculum.”
