Maitland isn’t classed as “rural”, but there are more students than ever before from a rural background starting medical studies each year. Eight hundred and seventy-eight students from rural areas commenced medicine in 2014, which represents 27 per cent of commencing medical students in Australia.

Getting students from rural backgrounds to study medicine is probably the most effective way of getting doctors to work in those places, but it’s a long road ahead if that’s what you’re committed to. 

After my five years of study, I’ll spend one year as an intern, followed by at least another year or two as a junior doctor before I spend 3-10+ years focusing on my specialisation. Even for a GP, it will usually take at least 10 years before they are practising unsupervised in a rural area.

In order to train more doctors for Australia, the government more than doubled the number of medical students in Australia in the 2000s but, like all bright ideas from government, the forward planning wasn’t in place to make sure they could become fully qualified. 

This year, there are still over 100 students who have completed their studies and will have to go overseas to complete an internship. 

There are also a far greater number of young doctors who are unable to begin their training – in 2014, there were 2300 eligible applications for only 1500 general practice training positions. 

But, most importantly, for specialities outside of general practice such as surgery or obstetrics, training positions, especially in rural areas, are woefully undersupplied given the number of medical graduates.

So when the Murray Darling Medical School proposed by Charles Sturt and La Trobe University says that they will bring more doctors to rural communities, they are making a promise they simply can’t keep. 

Instead of the government investing a whopping $40 million into a new medical school which won’t be able to produce properly-qualified doctors, new training positions should be created in rural areas, which would have doctors seeing patients sooner than a new medical school could hope.

James Lawler,

Australian Medical Students' 

Association president