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Academic Post ‘a transformative experience’
Thinking about doing the Academic Post Program? ‘Definitely do it,’ says a registrar whose career has now pivoted as a result.
The 2025 AGPT Academic Post Program cohort, including Dr Sam Gerami (top right).
Dr Sam Gerami thought ‘maybe one day in the future’ he would do a PhD.
But having just completed the RACGP’s 2025 Academic Post Program, he is now raring to go. At the end of this week, he will submit a grant proposal to begin a PhD next year.
It’s just one of the impacts that completing the program has had on the career trajectory of the Sydney-based general practice registrar.
Dr Gerami also thought he might move into teaching alongside his GP career. Instead, his focus is now squarely on research, as he looks forward to having the research paper on his Academic Post Program project published later this year – his first as a lead author.
‘It was actually teaching that I mainly thought I would want to do, and this post would allow me to do that in a formal way, on a paid position,’ he told newsGP.
‘Then once I got a bit more into it, I started to really enjoy the research part.’
With applications now open for the 2027 round of the Academic Post Program, Dr Gerami encourages other registrars to apply.
‘It is such a great program. I’m really so grateful that it exists. It’s made such a big difference,’ he said.
The Australian General Practice Training (AGPT) Academic Post Program is a part-time (0.5 FTE), 12-month academic training term offered to AGPT registrars.
Undertaken alongside clinical training, the program allows registrars to develop research, medical education and critical thinking skills by partnering with a university to develop and complete a research project in an area of general practice, and teach medical students.
All registrars receive mentoring and support from medical educators, university supervisors and the RACGP.
There are 23 academic posts available for the 2027 intake, which begins in February. Included in these are three specialised posts; the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association (AIDA) post, the PhD post and the Australian Journal of General Practice (AJGP) post.
The 2026 program is already well underway, with 27 projects being undertaken nationally, on topics including:
- AI scribe technology
- postnatal care
- trends in prescribing GLP-1 receptor agonists for weight loss
- factors influencing registrars’ management of patients with substance use disorders.
For his project, Dr Gerami partnered with the University of Sydney to explore GPs’ approach to managing vaping in patients.
‘The clinical evidence around vaping interventions is quite limited, so it’s all sort of based on what we know about smoking,’ he said.
‘It was a good intersection between GP and public health; I’m doing public health training at the moment.’
Dr Gerami undertook a mixed methods study, surveying around 2500 GPs, and followed up with interviews to gain extra information ‘on why and how GPs do what they do, rather than just the quantitative data’.
He estimates about 60% of his project time was spent on research, and 40% on teaching. He spent the other 0.5 FTE of his time on clinical work, alternating his work weeks between three days or two days, and spending the rest of the time at university.
‘It’s very doable,’ he said.
In fact, combining general practice with research is a career model Dr Gerami intends to maintain, to avoid burnout as a full-time GP.
‘General practice clinical work is high burnout work if you do it full time, because it’s really emotionally demanding … it’s quite taxing, any GP will tell you that,’ he said.
‘But being able to do it two or three times a week, where you still feel like you have enough time in general practice to provide good comprehensive care and continue seeing your own patients, but having some other days where you have more cognitive space, and you’re not running your full day on adrenaline and back-to-back appointments, it gives you that space.
‘Likewise when you’re in this gridlock of academic work, like, “I have to try and pull this manuscript together”, or in that writer’s block moment, you can still go to clinic, make a difference to people that day, and be like, okay, I’m still doing something worthwhile today.’
To any registrars thinking about applying for the Academic Post Program, Dr Gerami’s advice is to ‘definitely do it’.
‘Even if you think you are vaguely interested, look into it more and consider applying, because it’s such a transformative experience,’ he said.
‘It really gives you a lot of opportunities that you might not otherwise get access to so easily and so early in your career. And that’s a really privileged position to be in.’
Applications for the 2027 AGPT Academic Post Program are open until 6 July. To learn more and apply,
visit the website.
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