Respiratory and Sleep Medicine

Competencies

• Respiratory medicine runs on six themes: structure and function of the respiratory system, presenting problems, investigations, interventions and prevention measures, diseases, and research
• Diseases is the largest by a distance, at 27 objectives
• Interventions names the procedures one by one, worded as perform or supervise: pleural procedures, diagnostic bronchoscopy, therapeutic bronchoscopy, oxygen therapy, ventilatory support, upper airways management and airway delivery systems
• Every respiratory objective carries a level of competence. Level 1 is awareness sufficient to recognise and know when to refer, level 2 is knowledge sufficient to manage with supervision or refer, level 3 is advanced knowledge sufficient for independent specialist practice
• Sleep medicine runs on five themes: sleep physiology, sleep presentations, sleep disorders, sleep measurement and investigations, and clinical leadership and research
• Each sleep theme states its own end point instead of grading its objectives, so measurement and investigations reads as initiating, undertaking, interpreting and reporting sleep investigations
• Sleep investigation work is specific: interpreting raw polysomnography data, formulating reports for full and for limited channel studies types 2 to 4, tests of sleep propensity, sleep diaries and actigraphy
• By the end: able to provide unsupervised comprehensive medical care, at consultant level, in the subject you trained in

To complete

• Respiratory medicine only: 24 months of core respiratory medicine training
• Sleep medicine only: 24 months of core sleep medicine training
• At least 24 months of core training taken in Australia or New Zealand
• A Logbook of Procedures, together with the work based learning and assessment tools
• Procedural competence is assessed mainly on observation and logbook documentation
• Case load, numbers of studies reported, set ups and educational presentations are required of every sleep trainee, and the figures are not published here
• Sleep lab work, including set ups, staging, scoring and reporting, has to be done inside the accredited sleep medicine training period
• Time in private practice seeing patients with sleep disorders does not count unless the clinic is accredited for sleep medicine training
• Core training at accredited settings only, with prospective approval of every training period

To complete

• Non-core training on either single pathway
• Core sleep medicine training on the dual pathway, in place of the non-core
• Certification of each training period by the Training Program Committee and the Training Program Subcommittee for respiratory and sleep medicine
• Re-registration every year, by 28 February for the first half or the whole of the year, and by 31 August for the second half