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11content of those courses that are formally offered (Hafferty & Franks1994:865).Recognition and reform of the hidden curriculum is required to achieve thenecessary fundamental changes to the culture of undergraduate medicaleducation (Lempp & Seale 2004:772).The values attitudes, beliefs and related behaviours of Indigenous specialists, andmedical colleges, may not always be mutually reinforcing. To support Indigenoustrainees, at times, the Colleges may need to do more than acknowledge challenges ofIndigenous trainees, and act to support the trainees. One example of the ‘hiddencurriculum’ is the employment profile of the organisation. There is a need to ensurethat and at all levels of professional and administrative responsibility, Indigenousperspectives are not overlooked. One way to do this is to ensure that Indigenouspeople are not invisible within the organisation.Reporting of financial hardship as both a barrier to entering specialists training and tocompletion was also widely noted. Waiver of examination fees was seen as way thatcolleges could and have provided support in the pastThe cost can be incredibly expensive… those courses aren’t cheap, they arethousands of dollars… and the exams themselves can be expensive, andparticularly if you fail, there's the extra pressure. It’s hard enough you havepressure on to pass, but then knowing that it's costing you $5,000 or whatevereach time you sit it… the costs can be considerable. Dr Tamara MackeanMentoringFrom time immemorial mentoring has been the angular stone sustaining thebuilding of medical and surgical education (Toledo‐Pereyra 2007).Whilst mentoring didn’t feature strongly as either a specific enabler or barrier toprogression for Indigenous medical trainees, the literature revealed that ’mentoredresidents are nearly twice as likely to describe themselves as having excellent careerpreparation’ (Lis et al. 2009) and that ‘mentoring in the medical faculty with higherreported levels of career satisfaction and career preparedness’ (Ramanan et al. 2006;Sambunjak, Jensen et al. 2008). It may also be that the absence of specific mentoringprograms may create a situation whereby trainees ‘don’t know what they don’t know’,and the development of a mentoring program in this context may reap the benefitsand rewards highlighted in other contexts.A key question to consider with regard to providing mentoring for Indigenousspecialist trainees is: what is the role of the mentor and what is the particular gain forthe trainee? Is it a cultural mentor, someone who has seen the traps and dangers froman Indigenous perspective, and able to provide support and guidance when needed? Isit a clinical mentor, which should be the key responsibility of the relevant Colleges? Ifcultural mentoring is not seen as lacking, then the role already played in this area byAIDA and its members should not be underestimated. AIDA’s core business is supportand informal mentoring. Targeted clinical mentoring from within the college systemcould strengthen AIDA’s informal and collegial cultural mentoring. Messages fromIndigenous specialists interviewed varied regarding their experiences of mentoring,