Area health services as learning organisations: the rural experience

Staff development units (SDUs) across New South Wales Health are in a state of flux. Traditional models of training may no longer be meeting the continuing professional education needs of staff. This paper outlines how one SDU, the Rural Health Education and Research Centre at Tamworth, with few resources, has successfully negotiated the transformation from delivering ad hoc, face-to-face teaching, to a model encompassing competency-based training, recognition of prior learning, workplace assessment and distance education.