The value of strong, compassionate medical leadership in the delivery of high-quality care to patients within mental health services is clear. Leadership development, however, is far less well explored. This article is for psychiatric trainees, trainers and mental health organisations. It provides an introduction to the importance of leadership development within postgraduate medical training, the theory that should underpin its delivery, and the opportunities for both informal and formal leadership development within psychiatric training.

Drawing on demographic data collected from interviews with 50 Indigenous Australians with a doctoral qualification and 33 of their supervisors, this paper provides the first detailed picture of Indigenous doctoral education in Australia, with the focus on study modes, age of candidates, completion times and employment. It also analyses data produced through interviews with supervisors including age, employment levels and academic background. The study confronts a number of common perceptions in the higher education sector, to find that many Indigenous Australians are awarded their doctoral qualification in the middle stages of their career. This particular cohort is more likely to be studying in the arts and humanities, employed in higher education and enrolled on a full-time basis. This Australian Research Council (ARC) funded research provides new and important data to inform government policy, and to allow universities to implement strategies and recommendations arising from the Behrendt Report of 2012.

The integration of simulation into a medical postgraduate curriculum requires informed implementation in ways that take advantage of simulation's unique ability to facilitate guided application of new knowledge. It requires review of all objectives of the training program to ensure that each of these is mapped to the best possible learning method. To take maximum advantage of the training enhancements made possible by medical simulation, it must be integrated into the learning environment, not simply added on. This requires extensive reorganization of the resident didactic schedule.

Simulation planning is supported by clear learning objectives that define the goals of the session, promote learner investment in active participation and allow for structured feedback for individual growth. Teaching to specific objectives using simulation requires an increased time commitment from teaching faculty and careful logistical planning to facilitate flow of learners through a series of simulations in ways that maximize learning. When applied appropriately, simulation offers a unique opportunity for learners to acquire and apply new knowledge under direct supervision in ways that complement the rest of the educational curriculum. In addition, simulation can improve the learning environment and morale of residents, provide additional methods of resident evaluation, and facilitate the introduction of new technologies and procedures into the clinical environment.

Background: In the next decades of the twenty-first century, the global aging of populations will challenge every nation's ability to provide leadership by qualified health professionals to reshape and improve health care delivery systems. The challenge for educators is to design and deliver courses that will give students the knowledge and skills they need to fill that leadership role confidently in dementia care services. This paper explores the ways in which a curriculum can develop graduates who are ready to become leaders in shaping their industry.

Method: The Master of Health Science – Aged Services (MHSAS) program at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia is applied as a case study to describe the process by which the concept of leadership is applied as the key driver in curriculum development, teaching practices and learning outcomes.

Results: Evaluation instruments employed in a variety of purposes including teaching, curriculum planning and unit appraisal are discussed. Challenges for the future are proposed including the need for postgraduate programs in dementia to seek stronger national and international benchmarks and associations with other educational institutions to promote leadership and a vision of what is possible and desirable in dementia care provision.

Conclusions: In the twenty-first century, effective service provision in the aged health care sector will require postgraduate curricula that equip students for dementia care leadership. The MHSAS program provides an established template for such curricula.

Nutritional advice from doctors and other health workers is held in high regard by the general public. It is important, therefore, to ensure that the advice given is sound and safe. Historically, the training in nutrition for the health professions has been piecemeal and selective. As a first step in the development of national standards, a core curriculum on nutrition for health professionals was developed as part of the National Nutrition Task Force. Designed for undergraduates, the curriculum sought to provide a standard for training which would ensure safe practice. The curriculum, which has been accepted by all undergraduate medical schools, identifies eighteen bullet points covering: the principles of nutritional science; public health nutrition; clinical nutrition and nutritional support. Postgraduate training for doctors is the responsibility of the Royal Colleges, who have formed an Intercollegiate Group on nutrition. This group has developed an intercollegiate foundation course in nutrition which lasts for 1 week and is offered at different centres around the country. Using the Intercollegiate Course as a base, individual Colleges are exploring how they might best develop the next level of training by identifying the educational needs for nutrition in different sub-specialities. There is some discussion as to whether it is timely to develop a defined clinical speciality in human nutrition. Within these developments, nutritionists and dietitians are identified as a resource to be called upon by other health professionals, and therefore it is important that in their own training they are suitably equipped to take on this challenge.

A postal survey of 500 general practitioners (GPs) in south-west England was undertaken to evaluate the levels of undergraduate and postgraduate otolaryngology training and/or experience received by GPs in that area. Most GPs had received two weeks of undergraduate training in ENT, which had involved no formal assessment. Three-quarters of GPs considered this inadequate. A quarter of GPs had completed a hospital post in ENT prior to entering general practice, most of which lasted three months. Sixty-one per cent of GPs had received some formal postgraduate training in ENT, in the form of courses, lectures or hospital training sessions. Almost half of the GPs considered this inadequate. Seventy-five per cent of GPs stated they would like further training in ENT. Subjective estimates of referral rates to hospital ENT specialist clinics varied considerably.

This study illustrates the variability and level of dissatisfaction regarding ENT training amongst GPs at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

In Ireland I think it could be said that while archaeology plays an important role in national identity, this role is implicit and not very welldefined. Images of monuments in mist or glorious sunshine and artefacts displayed as treasure or jewellery are very widely deployed. This constructed past serves a variety of different purposes for a rapidly changing present, from utilization as a symbol of the long tradition of Ireland's high technological expertise — nowadays being best expressed in the computing industry, as a backdrop for the sustained (as opposed to sustainable) drive to increase tourism, to the context for a call of a revitalization of Celtic spirituality (see discussion in Gibbons 1996). More traditionally, of course, material remains played a very important role in the construction of national identities in Ireland (e.g. Crooke 1999). For these varied reasons archaeology is seen in a positive light, as a positive project, both by political decision-makers and the public. One illustration of this is the Discovery Programme, a government-funded research initiative set up in 1991 to enhance knowledge of Ireland’s past through integrated programmes of archaeological research (Waddell 1997; Eogan 1998).