Key Role For Rural Practices In Helping Relieve Medical Training Pressures

Main Category: Medical Students / Training
Also Included In: Primary Care / General Practice
Article Date: 28 Aug 2008 - 3:00 PDT

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The Federal Government must work urgently to better resource rural and remote general practices across Australia so they can help meet the increased demand for medical training being driven by the larger number of medical graduates coming from Australia's universities, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) argued today.

The call comes as the chronic shortage of doctors in rural and remote Australia continues unabated-with at least 1000 additional doctors needed immediately in the bush just to ensure access to basic healthcare-and as bottlenecks continue to arise across Australia in the provision of intern training that new medical graduates must undertake.

"The recent, big increase in young medical graduates is placing enormous demand on intern training capacity in hospitals, general practices and other facilities" RDAA President, Dr Peter Rischbieth, said. "It is also increasing the need for additional clinical placements for medical students and general practice training places for GP registrars.

"To help combat this, rural and remote general practices should be receiving substantially greater funding support from the Federal Government to enable them to assist significantly in meeting the increased demand for medical training.

"In its submission to the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission (NHHRC)-and as reported in The Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday-the NSW Medical Student Council argued that the number of medical student places in Australia should not be increased further, at least without significant investment and planning. "RDAA agrees that there must be much better resourcing of intern training, but we disagree strongly that medical student places should be frozen-Australia cannot afford to slam the brakes on future increases in medical student places given our desperate need for doctors.

"The only way forward is for the Federal Government to continue to increase medical student places in line with need, while urgently putting in place substantially more financial support to meet the increased demand for intern training, medical student placements and GP registrar placements. "This includes better supporting rural and remote general practices so they can take on more of the medical student, intern and registrar training load, as these practices are currently significantly under-utilised when it comes to providing teaching and training services.

"We are pleased to see the NSW Medical Student Council recommend in its submission to the NHHRC that rural clinical schools should be considered for an expanded role in medical training, given they are popular training places for medical students, provide greater exposure to patients and procedures, provide a favourable clinician-tostudent ratio, and can really help entice medical students to seriously consider a career in rural medicine. "While there is significant potential for general practices across rural and remote Australia to train more medical students, new medical graduates and GP registrars-including in procedural medicine-until they are properly supported to take on this task the number of teaching general practices will not increase significantly.

"At the end of the day, it costs a lot of money for a practice to accommodate and train a medical student, intern or Registrar-rural practices should not have to take on this financial burden. "There is also a desperate need for the Federal Government to increase post-graduate GP training places from around 600 places annually to at least 1200 places annually, and to reinstate federal funding for the Prevocational General Practice Placements Program (PGPPP) to at least its funding levels prior to the Rudd Government's significant budget cuts to this program. The PGPPP enables medical interns to spend 2-3 months in general practice, providing them with significant learning opportunities and a real taste for what a career in general practice offers.

"At the end of the day, freezing any further increase in medical student places will not solve the number one problem facing rural and remote Australia-the desperate shortage of doctors. "The situation is so bad that patients in many rural communities are now facing up to 300 kilometre round-trips, and up to 6 week waits, just to see a doctor for a basic consultation. Freezing the number of medical student places will do nothing to rectify this situation-but continuing to increase medical student places while also building on the current capacity for intern, medical student and registrar training will.

"Given this, we are pleased to see Tuesday's edition of The Sydney Morning Herald report that the Federal Government has no plans to cut university places for medical students. "It is now time for the Federal Government to put its money where its mouth is and provide the real support needed to ensure the training needs of our future medical students, interns and GP registrars are met, while also recognising the key role that rural and remote general practices can play in this area."

Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA)