24 February 2009

At a meeting of the Australian Medical Council on 23 February 2009, the Australasian College of Sports Physicians was accredited as a specialist college. This is the final part of the process of recognition of Sports and Exercise Medicine as a distinct specialty and that the ACSP is the body accredited to train these specialists.

Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre is the major training centre for Sports and Exercise Physicians in Melbourne and Australia and all our doctors are either Fellows or Registrars in training of the College. We would like to congratulate the ACSP and its members on achieving specialist accreditation and thank those who worked so hard on this process which has been going for many years. Particularly we would like to recognize the work of Assoc Prof Peter Brukner without whom the application may not have succeeded.

What does this mean to our patients?
At OPSMC we expect our doctors to have been trained and act as specialists and this accreditation is merely the government recognition of their diligence. This will continue and OPSMC will maintain its commitment to developing excellent sports and exercise medicine specialists.

Over 2009 the AMC, DHA and ACSP will engage in a process of developing a framework under which Sports and Exercise Physicians will operate. At the moment there will be no changes in terms of medicare rebates, referral requirements or access to rebates for investigations although these are some of the areas that will be examined.

We still encourage patients to bring a referral if you have seen a doctor or other health provider as this helps maintain the continuity of your care.

In summary doctors at OPSMC now have formal government recognition as specialists in Sports and Exercise Medicine. Apart from that there will be no change to the quality of service or method this is provided for 2009. This provides an exciting prelude to our July 2009 move into new premises at Olympic Park in the rectangular stadium.