Abstract for presentation at 38th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Nuclear Medicine 2008

A Collegial Strategic Approach to Professional Isolation as a Barrier to Continuing Professional Development in Rural Nuclear Medicine

  • Mr Pete Tually, Imaging the South, Australia
  • Dr Geoffrey Currie, Charles Sturt University, Australia
  • Mr Matthew Ayers, Mid North Coast Diagnostic Imaging, Australia
  • Mr Michael Crook, Toowoomba Nuclear Imaging, Australia
  • Ms Narelle Harrison, Central Gippsland Health Service, Australia
  • Ms Carla Robertson, Griffith Nuclear Medicine, Australia
  • Mr Russell Pearce, Gosford Nuclear Medicine, Australia
  • Mr David Grimmond, ANZSNM, Australia

    • The Australian health care system has been described or defined by the ‘inverse care law’; those Australians in the most need of health services receive the least. This might equally reflect life for rural Nuclear Medicine professionals; those with the greatest need for support and representation actually have the least. It is true that the rural Nuclear Medicine professional develops unique skills and capabilities not generally manifest in metropolitan counterparts; an evolutionary adaptation. Despite these attributes, rural Nuclear Medicine professionals are confronted with professional isolation that fosters a number of inequities, most notably in recent times continuing professional development (CPD).

    In a collegial initiative that bridged traditional boundaries of state borders, public versus private sectors, and corporate ownership, rural Nuclear Medicine professionals formed a strategic alliance aimed at engaging with and developing strategies to overcome the unique professional difficulties encountered in rural and remote Australia. Strategies are aimed at equitable provision of representation and professional opportunities for rural and remote Nuclear Medicine professionals, strategic networking and support to foster professional development, continuing education and collaborative solutions to issues of isolation, and recognition and exploitation of the distinctive competencies of rural practitioners.

    Conference Organiser - ICMS Pty Ltd