Participation, attendance and engagement guidelines
The Medical Program Participation Guidelines have been developed to support you to engage optimally with your learning in the Doctor of Medicine (MD) Program with your wellbeing in mind. The guidelines aim to:
- Clarify the expectations of you as a medical student in relation to participating optimally in the MD Program while preparing for future professional practice.
- Outline the flexible approaches available to you to prioritise your health.
- Inform you about the processes in place to enable you to manage absences.
The Medical School expects you to read these guidelines carefully, and that you will take responsibility to look after your health and manage your learning in accordance with these guidelines. The School encourages you to inform relevant personnel and to seek support early as outlined in these guidelines.
3. Out-of-hours expectations
The timing of Learning Experiences, whether at the university, community or in a clinical setting, will align with the work schedule of the teaching or clinical teams (between 6am-6pm, Monday-Friday except public holidays).
Clinical immersion out-of-hours experience will be required at different points within the program, as the healthcare needs faced by people and provision of healthcare are different during these times.
Evenings
When clinical immersion experience includes required out-of-hours clinical experience in the evening (weekday 6pm-10:30pm, or weekend public holiday 8am-10:30pm)*, this time should be considered part of the learning week. If a student is rostered for out-of-hours evening experience, then at least a 10hr break** is required.
Example: A student is rostered for an evening Emergency Department shift that finishes at 10pm. The earliest a student can be rostered the following day is 8am.
Overnight
When clinical immersion experience includes required out-of-hours clinical experience overnight (e.g. 10pm-8am)*, the students should have sufficient preparatory time and recovery time. The preparatory time is the start day of a sequence of overnights. The recovery time is the day of completion of the sequence of nights**. Students are not expected to attend scheduled Learning Experiences or undertake independent learning during the preparatory and recovery time. If the sequence is greater than one night, there is no expectation for students to attend Learning Experiences between the night shifts within the sequence.
Example: A student is rostered for 2 night sessions on Tuesday night and Wednesday night. The student can be rostered for normal activities on Monday. There are no expectations for the student to attend scheduled Learning Experiences during the day on Tuesday prior to the commencement of the night session. After completion of the Wednesday night session (finishing on Thursday morning), there are no expectations to attend scheduled learning Experiences on Thursday. The student is rostered on normal daily activities on Friday.
When clinical immersion experience includes required out-of-hours clinical experience, students should be informed >1 week in advance and allowed to swap with peers provided there is no compromise to learning***. If this information is not available or changes are made with <1 week notice (e.g. due to changing clinical rosters), students who cannot attend are empowered to discuss options to meet this Learning Experience requirement.
*These times are a guide, there is likely to be variation depending on the unit and site, however, if there are significant deviations please discuss with your Learning Community.
**Break periods and recovery time reflect the general guidance for junior doctors employed according to the Queensland Salaried Medical Officers Certified Agreement.
***It is noted that within some immersions, the allocations are made at the start of the immersion so this notice will not always be possible