Hospital grand rounds in Australia.

Objective: To determine whether grand rounds are becoming less common in Australian hospitals.

Design And Participants: Between November 2003 and April 2004, we surveyed 88 clinicians with educational responsibilities in Australian hospitals. A written questionnaire evaluated whether grand rounds were held and how frequently; the structure and percentage of attendees; and the perceived value of grand rounds with regard to education, professional development and general characteristics.

Barriers to prevocational placement programs in rural general practice.

Despite explicit support of the federal and state health departments, most prevocational trainees do not experience general practice or rural medicine. We have been running a program of prevocational placements of trainees working as rural general practitioners under supervision. From our experience, we have identified various barriers to implementation of such programs.