About HNET
Hunter New England Training in Psychiatry (HNET) is a mid-sized, regional psychiatry training program, located in Hunter New England, NSW.
It is the only one of the five networks in NSW to be based outside of Sydney and has a proud tradition of producing high-quality local graduates in psychiatry. The program has enough trainees at each level to make it easy to meet training requirements, while still keeping a friendly and personal feel.
Most trainees will commence their training in an inpatient setting and rotate through a variety of experiences in inpatient, community, consultation-liaison, child and adolescent, old age, neuropsychiatry, psychotherapy, forensics, and more.
The HNET is supported by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and NSW Health Education and Training Instititute (HETI).
Some of the benefits of participating in HNET include:
- joining a comprehensive service within Hunter New England LHD, with all areas of training being covered.
- alliances with the University of Newcastle's Centre for Brain and Mental Health Research (CBMHR) and the Hunter Medical Research Institute (HMRI) with many nationally recognised researchers aligned with the program
- our HNET senior staff hold prominent positions within the college training and examination committees.
- rates of passing examinations in HNET are on average higher than the state and bi-national averages.
- enjoying the location and lifestyle in the vibrant regional city of Newcastle.
Our mission
- A commitment to a high-quality training program, early identification of potential trainees, retaining high-quality medical staff and matching training needs to service needs and vice versa.
- The development of ethical, highly skilled, quality-oriented consultants committed to developing similar qualities in medical students, junior doctors, and other mental health staff.
- The provision of the best possible training environment and clinical care.
- To ensure the workforce provides excellent, integrated, seamless clinical care and will communicate and partner effectively with patients, their carers and families, and internal and external stakeholders.
Mental health facilities located in hospitals in the Hunter New England LHD include:
- Hunter New England Mental Health Centre at Calvary Mater Newcastle
- Morisset Hospital (Kaoriki, Willaroo, Kestrel, Cottages)
- Maitland Mental Health Unit at Maitland Hospital
- Manning Mental Health Service at Manning Hospital, Taree
- Tamworth Mental Health Unit (Banksia) at Tamworth Hospital
- Armidale Clark Centre at Armidale Hospital
- CL Psychiatry and Child and Adolescent inpatient unit (Nexus) at John Hunter Hospital.
The RANZCP training program is a minimum five-year program. To enter you must have completed a medical degree or your AMC in Australia and a minimum 1-year internship.
The first year is called 'Stage 1' training, with the second and third year called 'Stage 2' training. During this time, you will undergo the bulk of your adult psychiatry experiences, as well as mandatory 6-month rotations in consultation liaison psychiatry and child and adolescent psychiatry.
During training, you must undertake a number of workplace-based assessments (WBAs) and attend a Formal Education Course (FEC) for your first 3 years (at HNET, it is organised on Wednesday afternoons) and is protected teaching time for 40 weeks of the year.
You will also be required to pass written examinations and an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE), as well as write a psychological case report and conduct a scholarly project.
Two years of Stage 3 (Advanced) training can be in any of the following areas:
- general
- adult
- child
- old age
- forensics
- consultation liaison
- psychotherapy
- addiction
- neuropsychiatry.
Our FEC is fully accredited by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and is completely free of charge for trainees working with Hunter New England LHD.
The FEC for trainees occurs every Wednesday afternoon at Calvary Mater Newcastle, with grand rounds from 1.30pm and teaching from 2.40pm. Time to attend the FEC during work hours is provided to trainees from the service.
Separate training occurs for Stage 1 trainees, Stage 2 trainees, pre-examination trainees, and advanced trainees. Junior Medical Officers (PGY1 and 2) also have a separate training program.
HNET has offices in Level 7 of the MHA Building at Calvary Mater Newcastle in Edith St, Waratah.
You can access the HNET eLearning Centre through myLink.
HNET employ a number of specialist coordinators of training (SCOT) to provide expertise in specific areas and assist with coordination of various training activities.
| Area of specialty | SCOT |
|---|---|
| Assessments and CBT | A/Prof. Lisa Lampe |
| Scholarly Projects | Prof. Michael Breakspear |
| CL Psychiatry and Psychotherapy Educator | Dr Vinod Raveendran |
| Adult Psychiatry/Psychotherapy | Dr Nick Bendit |
| Child and Adolescent Psychiatry | Dr Deepika Yerrakalva |
| Rural Psychiatry | Dr Sachin Rai |
The HETI Rural Medical Trainee Scholarship (RMTS) supports medical trainees committed to training and providing patient care in rural locations in NSW through the continuum of their training and education years.
HNET also provides opportunities for Integrated Rural Training Pathways (IRTP) for RANZCP accredited trainees.
Our stories
"In many ways, my year in Tamworth was the best year of my training. And it was a pleasure to provide a service to patients and families that were so often incredibly grateful for the assistance."
Dr Alison Moffatt, Registrar.
"The Taree Mental Health Unit rotation was fantastic. It was a friendly and supportive environment with staff who were grateful for the presence of a training registrar. There was an enormous variety of clinical experience gained from both inpatient and outpatient work."
Dr Mariann Jackson, Registrar
"I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Armidale, so much so that I decided to stay on for an extra 6 months, and in the end I was sad to leave. The supervision provided was excellent and both the inpatient and community teams are friendly and very experienced."
Dr Brenton McKewin, Registrar
HNET promotes both buddying and mentoring as proven tools to assist trainees in their development.
About buddying
Buddying is a structured and time limited process whereby a current employee assists a new employee to make a good start in their role. In the context of the psychiatry trainee, HNET encourages Stage 2 and 3 trainees to buddy with new trainees for their first term. This involves:
- regularly meeting with your buddy
- going through a list of common things that new trainees need to learn or know about HNET, HNELHD and RANZCP training
- being a support and positive role model
- helping to explain and augment the formal orientation programs.
Contact HNELHD-MESOpsych@health.nsw.gov.au to register your interest in being a HNET buddy.
About mentoring
In the context of working in psychiatry, mentoring is valuable non-supervisory support for doctors where a more experienced person guides the less experienced person's development.
A mentor should not be the manager or supervisor of the mentee, and mentorship should not be performance-based. It is more a space where the mentee can learn by sharing, planning and generally feeling supported.
HNET Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) encourages trainees of all stages to act as a mentor to interns and residents involved with the Hunter New England Accelerated Psychiatry Program (HNAPP).
Contact HNELHD-MESOpsych@health.nsw.gov.au to register your interest in being a HNAPP mentor.
Resources
Health Education and Training Institute (HETI) offers a guide for mentors and a trainee in difficulty resource.
Our Cultural Consultation Program is led by Clinical Lead, Dr Bipin Ravindran and provides consultation, support and training to the Hunter New England LHD.
The program includes a clinic providing assessments for persons from diverse and refugee backgrounds and works in a collaborative model with local health and community services.
The key aspects of the program and clinic are:
- Flexible referral process aimed to improve barriers to access health services and facilitate inter-service partnerships.
- Assessments done at home or the patient's preferred environments providing a whole family approach to assessment and case formulation.
- Collaborative assessment, formulation and care with refugee health and multicultural service and state-based trauma service, STARTTS (NSW service for treatment and rehabilitation of torture and trauma survivors).
- Collaboration with state-based program, mental health community living supports for refugees and asylum seekers (MH-CLSR program).
- A clinical lead collaborates with mental health specialities including child and adolescent psychiatry, dual diagnosis and liaison psychiatry in providing clinical assessments and ongoing support.
- Teaching program covering social and cultural psychiatry for psychiatry trainees. The program collaborates with local refugee and trauma services to help train health care providers in areas of cultural psychiatry and refugee mental health.
Your health and wellbeing are one of our highest priorities. The Australian Doctors Health Network is a great place to do some confidential self-checks and seek advice about helping your colleagues.
Doctors are not always good patients and often play down symptoms, delay consulting a GP and are sometimes reluctant to take advice. If you have concerns about a physical symptom, don't try to assess it yourself. Consult a GP.
Common signs that you or a colleague might be struggling:
- work or personal stress
- burnout
- anxiety
- depression
- alcohol and drug use
- making mistakes
- disrupted sleep
- compassion fatigue
- withdrawing socially.
If you have any concerns about yourself or a colleague, you can have a confidential conversation with one of the JMO support staff. We are here to help. If you need to talk our door is open.
You can always talk to your supervisor, your mentor, or your Specialist Coordinators of Training and Director of Training.
If you prefer contacts external to HNET, the following supports are available.
- NSW Health JMO Support Line: 1300 JMO 321 (1300 566 321)
- RANZCP Member Welfare Support Line: 1800 941 002
- Doctors, Health NSW Advisory Service: (02) 9437 6552 24-hour service
- For emergencies dial 000
If you have concerns about your emotional wellbeing, you can use these online tools below to see if you should seek further advice:
- The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10)
- Professional quality of life (ProQOL)
- Beyond Blue has many resources to help people recognise symptoms of anxiety and depression. Learn about available treatments.
At the beginning of each semester, orientation occurs for new medical staff coming into HNET. Orientation also occurs for Junior Medical Officers (JMOs) at the beginning of each JMO rotation.
All new doctors to HNET will be able to access comprehensive orientation resources, including the relevant information and required forms.
For late starters who miss orientation, the MedApp contains everything you need to get started, and an individual mini orientation will be arranged with you.
Why choose a psychiatry career
Psychiatry offers a wide range of experiences, from therapy to neuropsychiatry, and from working with children to older adults. Psychiatry may the right fit for you, if you:
- have a holistic outlook on patient care
- enjoy social sciences
- value strong communication skills and working in a team
- are comfortable in situations where the right course of action is not always obvious
- understand and can empathise with the stigma around mental illness.
Prevocational training (JMOs)
Prevocational trainees doing 10–11-week terms during their intern and resident years of training have the opportunity to gain experience in psychiatry teams across the Hunter New England LHD.
HNET provides training and support for prevocational JMOs and has previously been awarded the inaugural HETI Prevocational Education Training Provider of the Year.
The Junior Medical Officer (JMO) Teaching Program is for PGY1s and PGY2s doing a psychiatry term at locations throughout the Hunter New England Mental Health Service, and rural sites participate in the teaching via web-streaming.
The sessions are held each Thursday from 3pm to 5pm and offer JMOs the opportunity to expand their knowledge base in areas such as mental state examination, psychopharmacology, the NSW Mental Health Act and risk management. The case-based discussions and interactive nature of the teaching enhances the learning experience.
JMO supportive supervision and reflective group sessions occur each Friday 4pm to 5pm at Calvary Mater Newcastle (MHA Building Level 4) and online for rural participants.
HNAPP is the first program in Australia which provides structured psychiatry training to interested PGY1 and PGY2 doctors who wished to pursue additional psychiatry and related mental health terms.
The aim of the program is to improve confidence and knowledge of mental illness for doctors (no matter the specialty), as well as attracting JMOs to a career in psychiatry.
JMOs are offered a psychiatry trainee as mentor across PGY1 and 2, are invited to social activities and additional educational exposure to mental health education.
Experiences may include:
- information on a career in psychiatry
- an introduction to the first-year registrar training program
- improving communication and reflective skills for doctors
- exploration of topical ethical and societal issues.
If you would like to discuss the program, please contact Dr Vinodkumar Raveendran, Director of Prevocational Education and Training: vinodkumar.raveendran@health.nsw.gov.au
- HNET eLearning Centre - myLink
- Doctors Professional Hub
- Hunter New England LHD staff access
Medical students
HNET works closely with the university Joint Medical Program (JMP) to provide a high-quality training program and good learning experience for medical students. There is emphasis on teaching in the clinical context and our consultants, registrars and other members of the multidisciplinary team provide valuable supervision and mentorship.
HNET has introduced a 'Registrars as Teachers' program to support the registrars in this role and to further enhance their teaching skills. This close liaison with the university, puts emphasis on medical student education, development of a framework to review the psychiatry curriculum and training for medical students. It encourages identifying students who are interested in psychiatry early on and supports high-quality teaching.
Resources for students
Other training for mental health clinicians
Aside from training provided specifically for prevocational trainees and registrars, HNET also supports mental health clinicians with other training opportunities, such as psychiatry grand rounds, and training for supervisors.
Grand rounds occur on Wednesday afternoons at 1.30pm in the MHA Building, Calvary Mater Newcastle with lunch held at 1pm. It is an open forum with all employees of Hunter New England Mental Health and participants from other District health services are invited.
Grand rounds are an important educational opportunity for all staff and have a long tradition of being popular with medical students, allied health staff, junior and senior medical staff, psychologists and other interested clinicians.
Grand Rounds are usually presented by members of the multidisciplinary team from each subspecialty and location throughout our network. High levels of audience participation are encouraged.
All mental health clinicians are welcome to attend.
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) training is a key component of Fellowship training and forms one of the Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) that is located in Stage 2 of the program.
It involves 1 academic session with leading ECT expert, Dr Alan Weiss, followed by 5 hands-on mornings in the Calvary Mater Newcastle theatre. This is followed by 3 supported sessions on Fridays.
The EPA requires the registrar to complete 3 Workplace Based Assessments (WBA) that take the form of 2 Case Based Discussions (CbDs) - one examines an acute use of ECT, and the other examines ECT use as a maintenance treatment.
The third WBA requires the registrar to present a PowerPoint professional presentation on the topic of their choice.
For further information, contact Vincent Drinkwater on (02) 4033 5027 or vincent.drinkwater@health.nsw.gov.au
The Hospital Skills Program (HSP) aims to improve the quality and safety of patient care. This innovative project by HETI is designed to keep Career Medical Officers and Senior Resident Medical Officers engaged with education and training.
All PGY3 and medical staff who are not in a vocational training program are required to enrol in the HSP.
The Director of Training in HNE for this program is Dr Usha Pavarthy, contact (02) 4985 3376.
- Hunter New England Simulation Centre (PDF 772.94KB)
- Consumer Participation Unit (CPU):HNET recommends reading books written by people about their own lived experience with mental illness or by carers about their experience of loved ones with mental illness. HNET psychiatry trainees take part in a book club discussion every semester that includes reading a number of different resources.
- Teaching on the Run workshops: HNET recommends that every doctor supervising junior medical staff in our service attend our Teaching on the Run workshops. To attend any of these workshops, contact kathy.ingham@health.nsw.gov.au
- Centre for Medical Professional Development (CFMPD): has a number of opportunities available to assist you in fulfilling your role as a medical clinician, especially if you are interested in developing your skills in a range of areas beyond your clinical expertise. For more information email kathy.ingham@health.nsw.gov.au
- International Medical Graduate (IMG) Mentoring and Support Program: The Mentoring and Support Program of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is designed for IMGs who are working towards achieving Fellowship of the RANZCP. For more information, visit the RANZCP website.
- Intellectual disability health education: This website has been developed by the Department of Developmental Disability Neuropsychiatric (3DN) at UNSW Medicine and funded by the NSW Government. This innovative education tool is aimed at upskilling the workforce to meet the unique mental health needs of those people with an intellectual disability.
Interesting work in spectacular locations
We offer work locations in diverse a mix of metropolitan, regional, and remote facilities across the Hunter New England region. You'll be challenged by interesting work and surrounded by spectacular locations. Explore our region.
Resources
Here are some links and resources to help improve your professional skills and knowledge.
- Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA)
- Centre for Brain and Mental Health Research (CBMHR)
- Everymind (formerly Hunter Institute of Mental Health)
- Mental health services in Hunter New England
- National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
- NSW Assocation of Psychiatry Trainees (NAPT)
- NSW Health Education and Training (HETI)
- Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme
- Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP)
- Psych Scene: Evidence-based psychiatry and critical appraisal skills
- Mental health professional online development
- Intellectual disability mental health eLearning website
- Therapeutic Goods Administration: Prescribing medicines in pregnancy database
- Hunter New England LHD Simulation Centre
- Stahl Prescriber's Guide Online
- Clinical Information Access Portal: The JMO Guide
Contact HNET
Street address:
Mental Health Administration Building, Level 7
Calvary Mater Newcastle
Edith St
Waratah NSW 2298
Postal address:
PO Box 833, Newcastle NSW 2300