• Home
• About AFPHM
• Training
  • Personnel
  • Applications
  • Training Forms
  • 2009 Trainee Intake
  • Training Guidelines
• News
• Events
• Job Vacancies
• Continuing Professional Development
• International Medical Graduates
• Members
• Contact Us

Introduction to the Training Programme

The Training Programme aims to develop competencies required for Fellows to undertake a broad variety of roles and challenges while practising public health medicine. These roles include the following:

• The Medical Officer of Health role which is recognised as the traditional role and requires an ability to work as part of a team with other public health professionals to protect and promote the health of that community.
• Research and teaching roles which require a high level of epidemiology expertise.
• Policy advisors working on a variety of regulatory and health matters which span both personal health and population health, and include needs assessment, service development and planning of programmes.
• Leadership and management roles within the health sector which includes the population based services and the personal health treatment services.

Public health physicians are part of a multidisciplinary workforce which takes a Public Health approach and which exists to improve health. The workforce does this by advising communities on actions that can be taken to improve their health (based on appropriate research), protecting populations from environmental and biological hazards, and by assessing populations’ needs for health services.

To become a specialist in public health medicine, Trainees must undertake appropriate training and pass prescribed examinations. In New Zealand there is only one Training Programme in public health medicine.

If undertaken full time, and without any exemption for past experience, the length of training in Basic Training is 16 months, and for Advanced Training 29 months. Basic Training requires completion of a Masters in Public Health (to a standard of a ‘B’ grade average or better).

Advanced Training is undertaken as an employee at various work sites, with the aim of achieving a number of defined core skills and competencies. Trainees are required to formally produce relevant project work, a selection of which is presented for the Final Examination, together with a record of training activities undertaken throughout the period of training. Trainees are formally assessed at the end of their third year of training to determine their suitability for sitting the Final Examination at the end of fourth year.

The Final Examination at the end of fourth year comprises assessment of submitted project work, as well as an oral examination on that work and more general public health problems.

The overall standards of the Training Programme, and competencies that Trainees must achieve, are defined by the Faculty. Throughout the period of training, the Faculty monitors the quality of the Training Programme, and the achievements and standards of individual Trainees. The Faculty also undertakes the Final Examination of each Trainee. The Training Programme itself is delivered by the New Zealand Population Health Charitable Trust, with funding from the Clinical Training Agency.

When medical practitioners successfully complete the Training Programme and the Final Examination, they are eligible to apply for Fellowship from the Faculty. They may then apply to the Medical Council of New Zealand for vocational registration in public health medicine, enabling them to practice independently in this branch of medicine.

Although the practice of public health medicine is continually changing, it is likely that the role will expand further rather than diminish. Opportunities for public health physicians to make significant contributions to the health and well-being of our society are expected to increase. It is the aim of the Faculty to ensure we are well prepared to take on these responsibilities.

Completion of the Public Health Medicine Training Programme Requires:

• Applying and being accepted into the Training Programme; applicants must hold current general registration with the Medical Council of New Zealand.
• Undertaking Basic Training, by completion of a Masters in Public Health to the standard required by the Faculty, as well as participation in other training activities.
• Undertaking Advanced Training, by employment at approved training sites for a minimum period, completing projects and other service work to a satisfactory standard, as well as participation in other relevant training activities outside the work site.
• Passing the Faculty's Final Examination, which includes an assessment of project work undertaken while training, and an oral examination. Successful candidates may apply for Fellowship of the Faculty, and then to the Medical Council for vocational registration in Public Health Medicine.
• Training in Australia