Resources

Health Professional Students Course – Mental Health First Aid Australia FAQs

Below is the guide for students enrolling into the Standard Mental Health First Aid (MHFA®) for Health Professional Students course

The Standard Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) for Health Professional Students FREE eLearning course teaches health
professional students how to provide initial support to a peer or other adult who may be experiencing a mental health
problem or mental health crisis, until professional help is received or the crisis resolves.

Below are some general FAQs that cover questions that may arise during your Instructor Training journey.

A Standard MHFA Instructor for Health Professional Students. Before commencing your application, please carefully read through the linked PDF below, which summarise the application, assessment and enrolment processes.

Medical Deans’ submission to the Australian Government proposing two reforms for consideration as part of the Budget 2025-26 process.

This Position Paper sets out Medical Deans’ vision to build and realise interest for medical careers in and with remote, rural and regional communities, and the conditions required to maintain this interest over the long term.

Access to a well-resourced medical workforce is key to ensuring remote, rural and regional communities receive equitable healthcare. Despite ongoing investment and innovation in rural medical education in Australia and New Zealand, access to medical practitioners still decreases as remoteness increases. In this paper, we recommend reforms to increase the appeal to medical students and junior doctors for a rewarding career practising in remote, rural and regional areas. These reforms need to account for the entire training continuum, from entry into medical school, prevocational and vocational training, to post-fellowship opportunities. 

Central to these recommendations is the need for reform to be place-based: driven by the people, needs and advantages of the local community. This paper calls for an increase in flexibility to support local communities to deliver training and opportunities. This paper also recognises the need for vibrant rural communities, and calls for ongoing investment to maintain thriving rural areas, in partnership with local communities.

Medical programs operate in a unique space in terms of BDH, as they span both higher education and the health system. A whole-of-program approach must consider campus learning environments as well as the clinical learning environments where many of those teaching students are employees of health services, not universities.

Central university policies and procedures on BDH are developed for students across all disciplines, but the research tells us that most of the BDH experienced by medical students occurs during clinical training. This guide is a complementary resource, bringing together a range of information and advice specifically relevant for medical schools (and other health professional programs).

This Position Paper sets out Medical Deans’ vision for how medical education and training can contribute to building, sustaining and supporting the General Practice workforce in Australia and New Zealand, and how to realise this vision.

The GP shortages across Australia and New Zealand are being widely felt and projected to worsen. Growing this vital medical workforce is key to meet the healthcare needs of our communities. In this paper we recommend reforms to increase the appeal to medical students and junior doctors of a career as a GP specialist, better prepare them for careers in primary care settings, and ensure all medical graduates have a strong understanding and positive experience of the challenges and rewards of General Practice.

Our recommendations consider all stages of the medical education and training continuum, from recruitment into medical school, learning for and about General Practice, learning in General Practice, progressing to practice, and the General Practice profession. We also need to build the research and the evidence base into graduates’ choice of medical vocation, and the primary care environment and context in both countries.

The Medical Deans’ Student and Staff Committee has developed a Postvention Consensus Statement to support our member schools in planning a proactive and appropriate response in case of a traumatic event such as the death or attempted suicide of a student or staff member. The framing principles in the Consensus Statement are intended for use in conjunction with the more detailed planning advice available in existing good practice postvention guides.

Medical Deans and AIDA re-affirm their long-standing collaboration and shared commitment to First Nations health and growing the numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander medical graduates.