CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
Amongst of the skills shortages currently faced by Australia’s health system, the lack of street smarts and basic social skills are also crippling the sector.
This comes as the Australian Medical Association (AMA) calls for a greater focus on providing training to help upskill medical graduates who spent all of their twenties with their noses buried in books, while desperately comparing themselves to their peers.
While new doctors take pride in making their parents happy, as well as satisfying their own ambitions, the lack of social skills amongst the medical fraternity is often remarked upon by their subordinates in hospitals, as well as their patients.
Their gruelling study, training and subsequent cattiness that graduates must endure usually means they miss out on playing team sport – or staying in dodgy hostels, opportunities which would otherwise see them meet interesting people outside of their chosen field
While elitism amongst doctors can be tackled by the humbling scenarios they find themselves in thanks to universal healthcare, more must be done to teach them better socials skills for when engaging with patients of any background.
However, recent studies have shown that graduates who were unlucky enough to be forced into rural placements actually did have the ability to not make pregnant women feel uncomfortable about their weight gain, and can talk to immigrant patients without asking if they can touch their hair.
Because of this, rural placements are viewed as a double-win for the health sector, in that they provide crucial staff for remote and regional hospitals – while also provide crucial social skills to the nerds who until recently thought there was nothing else they could learn from another human being after receiving their academic title.
However, rural placements are not a fix-all either, especially when students have to pay their own way, which is unfair even for the most strangest of young healthcare professionals.
The AMA says federal government funding for more rural-trained medical students must be paired with extra investment in the social skills of graduates who do not have the opportunity to visit less forgiving regional locations.
The Australian Medical Association is calling for a greater focus on creating training placements to help provide specialist training that will soothe the sector’s current social skills shortage.
One proposal that has been put forward would see all graduates, as well as qualified doctors, complete six months prac working behind a bar. Serving beers to everyday people who do not view them as god-like figures of academic excellence.
This pragmatic initiative has received immediate backlash from Australian doctors, who are on Linkedin for some reason, with many insisting social skills are far less important when you’ve got all the answers.
