Professional conduct
The Australian community rightfully expects a high level of professional behaviour from GPs. Professional competency training and assessment is a core part of the AGPT program. You must learn and demonstrate professional conduct throughout your training program, as detailed below.
You should behave and practice with honesty and integrity to meet the standards expected by your peers, patients and the wider Australian community. You should always maintain medical professionalism, in practice and in the community, including the appropriate use of social media. This means displaying professional behaviours and standards towards patients, RACGP staff, MEs, supervisors, training site staff, other healthcare professionals and community members.
Professional and ethical boundaries in the doctor–patient relationship are essential to good medical practice. AHPRA’s Good medical practice: A code of conduct for doctors in Australia states: ‘Doctors have a duty to make the care of patients their first concern…’ A professional and ethical therapeutic relationship puts the patient at the centre of care and supports the wellbeing of both you and your patients.
Developing a successful therapeutic relationship with your patient requires trust, integrity and setting professional boundaries. Ongoing self-reflection is important to ensure you uphold the highest professional and ethical standards in your practice.
You also need to take responsibility for your learning and actions. We’re here to support you on your journey to Fellowship, but it’s up to you to make the most of the support and expertise available to you. This includes communicating with your supervisor, training site and program team effectively and appropriately and completing program-related administrative tasks in a timely manner.
We can only give you the right support if you communicate to us your need for help. If you’re worried about anything related to your training journey, please reach out to someone within your training support network who you feel most comfortable talking to. This could be your supervisor, medical educator, registrar liaison officer, training coordinator, regional ME, or regional director of training.
If we’re having trouble contacting you or believe you are failing to conduct yourself professionally, we’ll attempt to raise these issues with you. If we can’t satisfactorily resolve the issues, we may decide it’s necessary to take remedial action or withdraw you from the program.