Rehabilitation Mission Statement

We train, accredit and support medical practitioners in the management of disability arising out of illness and injury.

Rehabilitation Medicine
Rehabilitation Medicine is a relatively new medical specialty. It arose in response to the needs of those injured in wartime, particularly following the Second World War, and gained momentum in this country from the 1950s onwards. The early practitioners were trained overseas, but in the late 1960s a diploma course was established by the Australian Postgraduate Federation in Medicine.

In Australia in 1976, the National Specialist Advisory Committee recognised Rehabilitation Medicine as a principal specialty.

Acknowledgment of the need to upgrade postgraduate education led in 1980 to the inauguration of the Australian College of Rehabilitation Medicine, and the first 4 medical practitioners graduated from the new training programme in 1984.

In accordance with the recommendations of the Doherty Report, the College Fellowship merged with the Royal Australasian College of Physicians in 1993 to become the Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine. Australian practitioners were granted consultant status by NSQAC in late 1995.

The Faculty is recognised as the principal advisory body to NSQAC on Rehabilitation Medicine and is headquartered in the RACP offices in Sydney. There are active Branches in most Australian states and in New Zealand, with a total of around 260 Fellows in practice nationally.

A Consultant in Rehabilitation Medicine:

• has had advanced training in the comprehensive management of disability;
• has a sound background in clinical medical skills, knowledge and attitudes;
• is experienced and trained in those aspects of medicine, surgery, community medicine and the psychological and social impacts of illness which relate to the assessment, management and prevention of disability;
• has the ability to organise and administer a comprehensive rehabilitation service;
• works in close collaboration with medical colleagues, allied health professionals and other in the development of rehabilitation programmes and during regular review of rehabilitation goals, and;
• has those attitudes which see the disabled or handicapped person's problems as a challenge.

"Rehabilitation is the combined and coordinated use of medical, social, educational and vocation measures for training or retraining the individual to the highest possible level of function."