Blended Supervision Pilot – ACEM Accredited for Core ED time - Tennant Creek Hospital – Pilot project available for 6 month rotation in 2025
Do you want to practice high acuity medicine, in a young population, as part of a small dynamic team? 80% of your patients will be Indigenous, there are no inpatient teams and you are 500km from the nearest CT scanner!
Tennant Creek is a town of 5000, 500km north of Alice Springs in the vast Northern Territory outback. Tennant Creek hospital is a 20 bed rural hospital with a modern emergency department. We have 14000 Emergency presentations per year, and 6600 admissions per year reflecting the high acuity of presentations.
A Core ED 6 months accredited term is being trialled as part of a blended supervision project. This means that you will be supervised on a daily basis by the FACRRMs on the ground in Tennant Creek – as well as receive regular remote supervision from the DEMTs in Alice Springs.
We can also combine the rotation with Alice Springs Hospital Emergency Department rotations.
The medicine is incredibly interesting. Rheumatic heart disease, bronchiectasis, chronic liver disease, renal disease, and diabetes are all prevalent, in a young population. Overwhelming sepsis is common. Trauma is also common, with MVAs, truncal and thigh stabbings, and blunt trauma from assault. You will meet the challenge of becoming an excellent clinician with limited availability of tests. Patients requiring higher level care are retrieved to Alice Springs Hospital via RFDS and the Central Australian Retrieval Service.
The rewarding work will see you hone your clinical skills in a small but dynamic ED. There is always a senior generalist (FACRRM) on call for onsite clinical support. The MRACC (Medical Retrieval Call Centre) in Alice Springs provide on phone support 24 hours a day. The DEMTs in Alice Springs will support your learning journey and offer regular supervision meetings. Your colleagues are a combination of FACRRM trainees and rotating residents from Alice Springs Hospital. Education is both in-house in Tennant Creek and via teleconference to Alice Springs.
Set in the Territory outback there are National Parks offering camping, walking, swimming, canoeing, bike riding and the annual Harmony Desert Festival. This is a great place to come to expand your horizons, to gain experience if you are thinking of doing voluntary service overseas, or if you are interested in broadening your experience of emergency medicine or Aboriginal health.
There is an option to undertake the rotation part time either over 6 months or 12 months.
For further information or to apply, please contact:
Dr Anna Fairbairn (ED Staff Specialist Alice Springs Hospital) [email protected]