About the ACRRM Professional Development Program (PDP)

The ACRRM Professional Development Program (PDP) reflects the high priority that ACRRM places on continuing professional development.

The PDP demonstrates ACRRM's commitment to ensuring that rural and remote doctors are able to maintain and enhance their performance and competence throughout their careers and, in turn, deliver high quality care to their patients. The PDP recognises the need for seamless, vertical integration with stages of training undertaken before Fellowship and has formulated its content and process accordingly.

Also open to members of other colleges.
 
ACRRM recognises that many of its members are also Fellows of other medical colleges and may have multiple and various levels of recognition and certification requirements to maintain. So as not to overburden rural medical practitioners, ACRRM has allowed for substantial cross-accreditation of education with similar programs run by other medical colleges, joint consultative committees and other educational programs. Indeed, other college members can use the ACRRM PDP to assist with training, CME and quality assurance.

The ACRRM Professional Development Committee is responsible for assessing and approving these programs.

Advanced Life Support valued as a key skill for rural doctors

The College believes that all Fellows should maintain their competency in advanced life support skills (ALS), to strengthen their confidence and safety in dealing with emergency situations. As such, achieving 10 ALS points is mandatory for Fellows within the PDP program.  

ALS Skills and Knowledge

ALS courses or statements of demonstrated ALS competency must provide the following skills and knowledge:

• an understanding of, and practical competence in, one-person and two-person expired air resuscitation and external cardiac compression,
• competence in airway management techniques that include Guedel airway, bag and mask, oxygen therapy and either laryngeal mask or intubation,
• demonstrated ability to efficiently use automated external defibrillators (AEDs) and/or biphasic defibrillators,
• demonstrated ability to identify and manage basic arrhythmias, and
• competence in intravenous access and drug therapy.

ALS Options

There is a range of suitable options for meeting your ALS requirements:

• ACRRM and other accredited ALS workshops
• ACRRM REST workshop
• Provide a Statement of Competency
• Completing a clinical attachment in an Emergency Department

Click to view ACRRM-run ALS workshops and REST workshops.

Click to view a range of ACRRM-accredited ALS courses.

New Accredited PDP activities

The range of currently accredited Professional Development Program (PDP) Activities present you with practical, interesting opportunities to continue building your knowledge and skills, wherever you are working.

A wide variety of PDP activities are accredited with ACRRM every fortnight. The activities range from hands-on practical workshops to conferences and seminars to innovative online education courses. 

Click to view the latest accredited activities.

Providers - accredit your educational events NOW!

Click here to access an Application Form

You can also contact the PDP team on Free call 1800 223 226 or email pdpacrrm [dot] org [dot] au about PDP activities, including whether they are accredited for the Rural Procedural Grants Program.

Register in PDP

If you require reporting the Department of Human Services (formerly Medicare Australia) for: 

• Vocational registration
• Rural OMP
• After-hours OMP registration

We can also collect your points for record keeping purposes and reporting to other third parties.

Please download the PDP Registration form, complete and sign it, and fax to the ACRRM PDP team: 07 3105 8299.

Read editions of the PDP Newsletter

PDP policies

PDP Remediation 
ACRRM Retraining Program