LGH senior staff spokesman Scott Parkes said yesterday that it was one of the strategies being examined to maintain the hospital's reputation as a tertiary teaching institution.

Dr Parkes said that there was concern among senior specialists that specialist teaching was at major risk from the budget cutbacks which would see operating theatres close and staff cut.

``Teaching and training is at risk because we will all have to do the same with less,'' he said.

``The potential will be that our undergraduates and post graduates will not be seeing enough cases to be adequately trained.''

Dr Parkes said that one of the options was for trainees to potentially get the extra experience in the private area with specialists who worked in both the private and public sector.

Australian Medical Association Tasmanian president John Davis said that the state's two major hospitals' teaching accreditation would be jeopardised as health budget cuts dug deeper.

``The hospitals will find it harder with less operative cases - there is no doubt that if we continue to not have the operative case load that accreditation will come into question,'' Dr Davis said.