It’s been a busy month – at the AGM in May, the College Committee membership terms changed over, and the Bi-national Committee for Trainees (BCT) farewelled several Jurisdictional Representatives (ACT, QLD, SA, NSW, WA) and welcomed new members. It seems like an appropriate time to make sure you’re aware that the BCT jurisdictional representatives also sit on the Branch Committee and Branch Training Committee for your jurisdiction, so it’s an opportunity for trainees to have a voice in these forums. Please look out for your new or old representative and contact them via their email (to be updated soon with new members) if there are issues they may be able to raise at the above committees, or at the Trainees’ Advisory Council (TAC) or BCT meetings. 

Dr Ava Carter has finished her term, as the Board Appointed Director, trainee - thank you for all your hard work Ava. Dr Ashna Basu (NSW) is taking up the position. Having known Ashna from her time as the NSW representative on the BCT, I’m confident that she will be excellent in this position.

The next BCT meeting will be in late May. At that meeting, we hope to finalise which members will represent trainees on a number of College committees – including but not limited to the Education Committee (EC), Committee for Exams, Committee for Training and the Accreditation Committee. These appointments will be communicated to you in the next Training and assessment newsletter or via your jurisdictional representative.

May has also been Congress month! It was nice to see so many trainees presenting their research, participating in the debates or other sessions and “networking” (special shout out to everyone I talked to who prefers another term). This month we’ve also had the Fellowship ceremony – congratulations to all the trainees who have now moved on to the next stage in their career. And another congratulations to the trainees who were awarded various prizes. 

Thank you to those who asked questions or gave feedback at the presentation from BCT Deputy Chair Dr Elise Witter and myself: we are aware that trainees are keen to have, among other things, better communication and clearer timelines displayed on the RANZCP website, greater thought given to training in psychotherapy skills and more support when embarking on the Scholarly Project.

Here's an update on the things that the BCT has been advocating for:

Assessments:

• IOCA – it looks like this will be going ahead later this year, as per the timeline that you should have received on April 15 from Dr Spencer, Chair of Committee for Training. If you missed it, please check your inbox for “Update on the IOCA implementation: April 2025” from RANZCP Clinicals.  
  
  At the EC meeting on 4 April, the IOCA was discussed and I expressed what I understand the general trainee attitude to be – scepticism of the value of the IOCA, concerns about the process, etc. The clear message from others on the EC was that the IOCA is supposed to be a low-stakes activity/assessment that allows for a trainee to receive constructive feedback from someone other than their principle supervisor. The IOCA webpage and the FAQs on the CCPR have some useful information; there will also be a webinar on Thursday 15 May, that will be recorded and released at a later date.
• CEQ – the President’s Update on 24 April advised that “an announcement about the future arrangements for the CEQ will be made widely available during the week commencing 2 June.” The feedback that I have received from trainees is that this is far too late for a decision to be made and communicated – I expressed this sentiment strongly in a letter to the Board on May 1 (a copy of this letter will be able to be accessed through your “My meeting papers” section of the website when the next BCT meeting papers become available). I have received a response advising that a decision has not yet been reached, and therefore there will be no update prior to 2 June. This obviously leaves those of us who were planning on sitting the CEQ in September in the difficult position of deciding how much effort to put into preparing for an exam that may or may not go ahead. 
  I’m in my first rotation of Stage 3 and was planning on sitting the CEQ in September, but also still need to do my PWC write-up and submit my Scholarly Project (SP) – I’ve made the decision to focus on my Psychotherapy Written Case (PWC) at this point, as it seems like a better use of my time. However, please don’t use this as advice on what to do, and I don’t have any inside information on what might happen – it’s just one perspective on a potential efficient use of time. In any case, my position as the Chair of the BCT is that a precedent has been set for the CEQ to be “no-disadvantage”, if there was any move for the CEQ to go ahead without this status, the BCT will be advocating strongly for a no-disadvantage status.  
• Assessment Taskforce – I attended the AGM on 7 May and, as there was no mention of assessments or the CEQ in any of the reports from the Board. I took the opportunity to ask a question in the General Business section – it was something along the lines of “I’m asking this question because I would like it to be minuted that trainees are unhappy with the process of the CEQ decision and the communication related to it. How are you going to work towards restoring trainee and supervisor trust in the College and the program of assessments?” I have to say that I’m more interested in whether and what action is taken from here rather than the words that are spoken at the AGM, however the answer was that the Education Portfolio will be looking to establish an Assessment Taskforce with the purpose of looking at the overall program of assessments and the intention of restructuring things so that training and assessment is more cohesive. The timeframe for this is more like years – while there will be changes more imminently for the CEQ and IOCA (above), as well as Entrustable professional activities (EPAs) I’m not expecting any other major changes without a good amount of consultation and a 12 month lead-in time (committed to by the Board as per the Trainee Engagement Strategy). Additionally, the new RANZCP President, Dr Astha Tomar, said in her address to Congress on May 8 that “lessons have been learned from AV-OSCE and CEQ” – I certainly hope that this is the case.
• PWC – please make sure you’re using the correct marking sheet, as the new version is now being used by markers if it is your first submission. Additionally, members of the Trainees Advisory Council (TAC) have created a survey template to explore challenges to the PWC in its current format, this has been sent to the College and we look forward to further communication on this. Another special shout out to those who participated in the debate on the PWC at Congress – there was lots of interesting discussion as to whether the PWC might be “good enough” as is.

NSW crisis: accreditation visits occurred in late March and findings have been sent to the DOTs and health services. For places not meeting accreditation standards, there is an opportunity to remedy the issue and prevent dis-accreditation. The Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) process is ongoing. 
RANZCP is providing weekly email updates to NSW trainees with details of support options and the National Assessment Panel for Trainees (NAPT) has been advocating strongly for NSW trainees. We will continue to watch this space closely.

WA accreditation: we are cautiously optimistic that changes are finally starting and that some long-standing issues will be addressed. 

Counties Manukau: safety after-hours - we are awaiting the findings of the extraordinary accreditation visit that occurred in early April.

AI: there was plenty of discussion about the potential uses and risks of AI in training and in psychiatry more generally at Congress. Again, we look forward to more discussion with the College on this.