Are you ready for an extraordinarily great weekend away? Would you like to learn more about your own bias, how to develop self-awareness, and how to optimise your cultural safety in medicine? In need of an indulgent, fun and empowering break with like-minded medical colleagues?
Bring your CPD to life and complete your Medical Board of Australia requirements in a meaningful way with ease!
Make new friends and enjoy some much-needed R and R.
Give yourself a treat and turn your March into something vibrant and exciting.
What to expect
A weekend of relaxation and restoration, laughter, smiles, connection, new friends, and growth – enjoy learning from each other. Develop your skills for self-awareness and critical consciousness. Hear from expert, passionate speakers on well-being, bias in medicine, and cultural safety. Identify your own bias in medicine and find ways of optimising cultural safety in your practice. Enjoy conducting a professional conversation to review your performance as a doctor and complete your mandatory professional development plan. Conduct a cultural safety audit to leverage your practice. Be professionally supported and coached to complete up to 12 hours of CPD with 5 hours of reviewing performance, a professional conversation, completion of your professional development plan, and 5 hours of measuring outcomes on cultural safety. Be inspired and leave knowing yourself that little bit more masterfully. All activities are optional offerings. So, if you find yourself lost down a Newcastle Lane immersed in street art, don’t despair; you are most welcome to skip sessions to suit your needs. We want you to feel at ease and free to do as you need.
You will learn
- Self-awareness and critical consciousness skills for leadership and work as a doctor.
- How to identify and manage your biases, prejudices, and assumptions, to leverage your medical practice.
- What cultural safety is, why it is important for doctors and how to optimise it.
- The Medical Board of Australia CPD requirements for doctors and how to meet them.
Inclusions
- Talks on the 2025 CPD requirements, wellbeing skills and self-awareness, critical consciousness, bias, and cultural safety.
- Participate in group CPD sessions designed to empower, and equip you with take-home skills for well-being, leadership, and cultural safety.
- Up to 12 hours CPD with 5 hours of reviewing performance, a professional conversation, completion of your professional development plan, and 5 hours of measuring outcomes on cultural safety.
- All CPD activities incorporate elements of cultural safety and professional behavious.
- Mindfulness and self-care sessions are incorporated into all group CPD sessions.
- Delegate handouts with CPD templates to complete and upload into your CPD home, along with take-home skills and other resources.
- Enjoy daily heated yoga at Yoga Body Works, Newcastle’s best and most cherished studio. You can amp up your flow and sweat it up or completely relax in the warmth of a child pose. At Yoga Body Works, there is no judgment, and everyone is welcome, including newbie beginner yogis.
- Welcome drinks at Rooftop Bar QT Hotel, a private shopping experience at Wilson and Hunter, and wine tasting at Artisanal Cellars make the weekend a perfect balance of work and play.
- All meals, except breakfast, are included – you will eat like a king. There will be afternoon and morning teas, lovely lunches, a two-course Friday night dinner at Jana QT, and banquet Saturday dinner at Oh My Pappa.
- Please note accommodation, travel, parking, and breakfasts are not included.
Program (subject to change)
Friday 27th – Friday Funday, settle in and settle down.
Join the optional well-being activities or kickback and start the afternoon drinks early, enjoying the spectacular rooftop view of Newcastle Harbour at Rooftop QT.
- 2pm: Arrival and afternoon tea at the fabulous QT Hotel Newcastle. Check into your room if you are staying or hang in our private room where all the action will happen.
- 2.30pm: Formal Welcome – meet your new friends over a bit of coffee and cake. We will discuss the program and plan for the CPD and weekend.
- 3pm: Restless after your travels? Stretch your legs with an optional coastal walk from the hotel to Town Beach or go for a beach dip! Find your bearings and get to know this relaxed beach city.
- 4.30pm: Have a play at Yoga Body Works, Newcastle, where sweat meets zen. If you have not tried heated yoga, you are in for a treat!
- If yoga is not your thing, enjoy a private shopping experience with bubbles at one of Newcastle’s best clothes shops, Wilson and Hunter, just down the road from QT. The Wilson and Hunter experience is grounded in the philosophy that all women deserve to feel fantastic, both throughout the shopping experience and every time they wear their purchases. The staff are knowledgeable, approachable, and fun. Current brands include Alemais, Alessandra, Bec and Bridge, Blanca, Devotion Twins, Layer/d, Nude Lucy, Alias Mae, Silk Laundry, Up! Pants, The Upside, East Axe, Peter Lang and Balyck, Fazeek and House of Nunu.
- 6pm: Celebrate the start of the retreat with a welcome drink at Rooftop QT. Nine floors up, the jewel in the crown of QT Newcastle is the Rooftop at QT. A refreshing wisp of gin and whisky delight greets you atop fresh views of the Harbour and the coast.
- 6.45pm: Indulge in a two-course meal at QT’s impressive Jana Restaurant. Explore Newcastle’s surroundings through plate and palate, paired with drops of local provenance as you wine and refine at Jana’s table. A neighbourhood favourite, gather like old friends at tables blessed with crisp local produce. Simplicity and sustainability are nestled in Newcastle, where Jana’s scents and secrets spill from the open kitchen straight through to a relaxed setting for diners to unwind. Nose to tail and cheek to cheek, this is down-to-earth dining at its best.
Saturday 28 – Reviewing Performance
- 7am: Optional yin yoga at Yoga Body Works
- 10am: Group CPD session on 2025 CPD requirements, mindfulness, self-compassion and critical consciousness for leadership
- 11.15am: Morning tea break
- 11.30am: Group CPD session: reviewing your biases in medicine (Professor Forrest)
- 1pm: lunch at QT Hotel
- 2pm: Group CPD session: Professional conversation and complete your professional development plan
- 3.30pm: Afternoon tea and free time
- 6pm: Optional wine tasting at Artisanal Cellars
- 6.45pm: Banquet share dinner at Oh My Pappa. If you are looking for a roller coaster ride of taste, you will love this meal. The chef at Oh My Papa believes food feeds the soul. They encourage a shared style of dining. Oh My Papa is an intimate gathering where people eat, drink and be merry.
Sunday 29 – Measuring Outcomes
- 8am: Optional yin and yang heated yoga at Yoga Body Works
- 10am: Group CPD session on cultural Safety in Medicine (Sarah Boyne)
- 11.15am: Morning tea break
- 11.30am: Group CPD session: Cultural Safety Audit Part 1
- 1pm: lunch at QT Hotel
- 2pm: Group CPD session: Cultural Safety Audit Part 2
- 3.30pm Close
- 4pm: Optional yin and yang heated yoga at Yoga Body Works
Guest speakers
Sarah Boyne has over 25 years of working experience in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health at the Local, State-wide and National levels, building the community, workforce capacity and resilience. She has developed primary, secondary and tertiary clinical and non-clinical care levels in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health services across urban, rural and remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Sarah has co-designed and developed a number of Cultural Safety principles and frameworks by engaging Knowledge Holders, asking them, “What is cultural Safety? and “What does cultural safety look like for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workforce?”. Sarah has consulted on and developed best practice community engagement principles for conducting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander consultations in a culturally safe and appropriate way. At Be Extraordinary CPD, Sarah will share her rich cultural knowledge of cultural safety, why it is crucial in medicine and how you can optimise it in your practice as a doctor. Her warm and charismatic presenting style is entertaining, endearing and highly engaging. You will love connecting with Sarah.
Professor Kirsty Forrest is Dean of Medicine at Bond University and Treasurer of the Executive Committee of Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand (MDANZ). Kirsty is a Consultant Anesthetist at Gold Coast University Hospital and a Fellow of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA). She is the Chair of the Education, Development and Evaluation Committee and the Professional Practice Research Network of ANZCA. Her research focus is Medical Education, and she is co-author and editor of several best-selling medical textbooks, including ‘Understanding Medical Education: Evidence, Theory and Practice’ and ‘Healthcare Simulation at a Glance.’
The Host
Dr Susannah Ward is a Specialist Physician of Rehabilitation Medicine. She was awarded the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) fellowship Basmajian Prize in 2018. She has a special interest in wellbeing and is passionate about holistic health. She has been involved in research piloting wellness and mindfulness sessions in hospitals and was awarded the Advancement in Medicine Grant with Avant in 2018. She enjoys medical writing with several publications on health professional wellness and is a published author of the self-help book Mastering Real Wellness. In addition to her clinical work, she founded Ataraxia Collective, a health and wellness business offering doctor CPD and wellbeing retreats, well-being workshops and a blog. She is an accredited yoga teacher RYT200 with Yoga Alliance. She was a board director for the RACP 2016-2018 and is the Chair of the Member Health and Wellbeing Committee (RACP), Chair of RACP Wellbeing Advocates, and director for Mood Active a NFP that promotes exercise as a mental health intervention. Dr Ward hopes to encourage a compassionate and mindful medical culture that supports holistic health for patients and health professionals.