Hunter New England Training in Psychiatry (HNET)

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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 fully accredited by the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) and NSW Health Education and Training Instititute (HETI).

RNZCP Accreditation Report Summary:

“The programme is in excellent health, offering high-quality and varied training experiences. It is well-administered and organised daily, with strong management support. NSWHNET’s resources are top-notch compared to other training zones. The consistently delivered Formal Education Course (FEC) has received positive accreditation. Trainees are well-monitored, supported, and generally satisfied with the available resources. The programme is responsive to trainee concerns, ensuring smooth communication with management. Trainees report their supervisory needs are met, with access to supervision for both workplace-based training and summative assessments.”

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.
dedicated support for fellowship requirements including scholarly project and psychotherapy written case.
HNET is the only training program in NSW to offer a free RANZCP accredited formal education course for HNET trainees.
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.
Exam success – We offer a free exam preparation sessions to trainees and rates of passing examinations in HNET are on average higher than the state and bi-national averages.

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.

Our mental health facilities

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.

Teams available:

Acute Care Team and Psychiatric Emergency Services
Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry
Child & Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS)
Perinatal Psychiatry
Psychotherapy (e.g. Centre for Psychotherapy)
Adult Inpatient and Community
Newcastle
Lake Macquarie
Maitland
Tamworth
Taree
Armidale
Mental Health Intensive Care
Education (e.g. University of Newcastle and HNET)
Leadership and Medical Administration
Mental Health Services for Older People
Mental Health Substance Use Services and DACS
Eating Disorders (e.g. Residential Eating Disorder Centre)
Neuropsychiatry Services
Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
Forensic Psychiatry
Telepsychiatry Service
There are also community teams across the greater Newcastle area including Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland areas.

Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) training program

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 24 months of general medical training.

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 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.

Learn more about RANZCP psychiatry training.

Psychiatry training Formal Education Course (FEC)

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.

Specialist coordinators of training (SCOT)

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 Preeti Jacob
Rural Psychiatry	Dr Sachin Rai

Rural scholarships

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.

Learn more about RMTS.

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

Buddies and mentors

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 a mentor to interns and residents.

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.

Cultural consultation program

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.

Support services

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.

Getting started with HNET

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 MediLINK 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.

Search psychiatry careers at Hunter New England LHD

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.

About the JMO training program

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.

JMO resources

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.

Psychiatry grand rounds

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

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

Hospital Skills Program

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.

Other education opportunities

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.