Overall, the proportion of advanced vocational trainees who are females has shown small increases every year from 2011 to 2015. In 2015, over half (53.6%) of all advanced vocational trainees were females (Table 4.31).
The proportion of female advanced trainees has fluctuated over the years in most specialties, particularly those with smaller numbers of trainees. In spite of this variation, there were specialties that consistently had lower proportions of female trainees, such as oral and maxillofacial surgery, sport and exercise medicine, surgery, occupational and environmental medicine and intensive care medicine. In contrast, obstetrics and gynaecology, paediatrics, public health medicine, rehabilitation medicine, general practice and palliative medicine have maintained higher proportions of female advanced trainees of around three-fifths of trainees in most years.
Table 4.31: Proportion of female advanced trainees by medical specialty, 2011-2015
Until the end of 2014, the AGPT program was managed by GPET, which was owned and funded by the Australian Government.
The total proportion of female surgical trainees including Australian, New Zealand and overseas was 24.4%.
Source: Medical colleges and the Australian Government Department of Health
The proportion of female advanced trainees (Table 4.32) steadily increased in most state and territories during the five year period.
The Northern Territory consistently had the highest proportion of female trainees, with females making up about three-fifths of trainees in most years. The proportion of female trainees was considerably lower in the Australian Capital Territory compared to the other states and territories.
Table 4.32: Proportion of female advanced trainees by state/territory, 2011-2015
NSW
VIC
QLD
SA
WA
TAS
NT
ACT
AUS
Proportion female (%)
2011
53.8
49.9
47.3
48.2
47.3
51.2
61.6
34.5
50.2
2012
52.7
50.8
46.8
50.2
50.9
52.7
60.1
35.8
50.3
2013
53.4
52.5
48.8
52.2
54.2
53.6
57.7
39.9
52.1
2014
54.0
53.4
49.4
50.9
53.8
55.3
58.6
45.1
52.6
2015
54.0
54.6
50.0
54.7
55.4
56.2
58.8
50.9
53.6
Source: Medical colleges and the Australian Government Department of Health
The number of part-time advanced trainees increased by 57.8% between 2011 and 2015 (Table 4.33). The number of part-time trainees tends to fluctuate from year to year in some medical specialities.
Emergency medicine and paediatrics data account for trainees undertaking paediatric emergency medicine.
Numbers reflect trainees who have undertaken part-time training at any time during the first half of the year. This does not mean they have been in part-time training for the whole year.
Until the end of 2014, the AGPT program was managed by GPET, which was owned and funded by the Australian Government. Registrars are part-time if their training time fell below 89% of a full-time equivalent registrar in either of the semesters for that training year.
RACS does not differentiate between basic and advanced surgical trainees as the surgical program is an integrated program (SET).
Due to a different methodology being used to calculate part-time trainees in the 17th report this figure was changed to 715 from 874 published in the 16th report.
Excludes the New Zealand and Hong Kong advanced trainees.
Source: Medical colleges and the Australian Government Department of Health
