Advanced certificate in paediatric anaesthesia

12 September 2022

A new advanced certificate in paediatric anaesthesia for rural generalist practitioners with advanced training in anaesthesia will be available from 2024.

The Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) are developing a new advanced certificate in paediatric anaesthesia for rural generalist practitioners with advanced training in anaesthesia.

The certificate will be available from 2024 for graduates of the Diploma of Rural Generalist Anaesthesia (DipRGA) which will welcome its first intake next year. The DipRGA curriculum will certify doctors to practice on patients down to the age of five years. In some areas, rural generalist practitioners may be required to provide anaesthesia for children between three and five years old. To address this need, an advanced certificate in paediatric (3-5 years old) anaesthesia will be developed as a post-DipRGA qualification.

The three colleges will develop this certificate and deliver it via a clinical placement (likely 3 months in duration) in training hospitals with an age-appropriate caseload to enable trainees to achieve the volume of practice outlined in the curriculum. Workplace-based assessments (WBAs) will be developed as part of the curriculum and modelled on the WBAs used in the DipRGA.

The development of the advanced certificate in paediatric anaesthesia is being funded by ANZCA and the Australian Government Department of Health through the Specialist Training Program.