LaTrobe University and Charles Sturt University are looking to address this by creating the rurally-based medical school, the Murray Darling Medical School (MDMS).

Proposed sites include campuses in Orange, Wagga Wagga and Bendigo. At face value, this seems like a good idea – get more students in to rural areas with the intention of having them practice there in the future.

There are numerous problems with this proposal, however.

The Australian Medical Students Association (AMSA) is opposed to the creation of a new medical school for a number of reasons. The proposed sites already have medical students from Monash, University of New South Wales and University of Sydney studying there on rural placements.

Current medical schools placing students in rural areas to study, while a great initiative, have yet to fix shortages in the doctor workforce experienced by rural areas. Putting even more students in these areas is not going to help.

In the past 10 years, the number of medical graduates in Australia has more than doubled,  from 1503 to 3700. There is already a bottle neck effect experienced by junior doctors with not enough jobs to go around. 

In 2015, there were 323 more medical graduates than there were internship positions available. In the same year, close to 800 GP training applications were rejected.

Increasing the number of medical graduates will not solve this issue. Furthermore, training positions are often only available in major metropolitan areas.

This means even if people spend part of their medical studies in rural areas, as many already are, to have any real prospect of specialising, they need to move to cities for further training and better job prospects.

AMSA believes that the $48 million cost of the MDMS  would be better spent by establishing dozens of specialty training positions in rural areas. Instead of waiting many years for the construction of the MDMS and its first graduating class, this proposal will use already available resources:  hundreds (if not thousands) of junior doctors waiting to get in to specialty training programs.

At the point where junior doctors are accepted in to training positions, they are often establishing lives of their own and settling down with their own young families.

If more training positions and specialist jobs were available in rural areas, this situation could be replicated rurally and long term procurement of specialist doctors would be a distinct possibility for these areas.

Not only is the proposed MDMS opposed by current Australian medical students, the federal government appears to not be backing the project either.

Despite strong support from the National party, there is yet to be any full-fledged Coalition support announced. The recent federal budget  has not awarded LaTrobe and Charles Sturt University the required $48 million to go ahead with their plan.

The MDMS will not fix rural doctor shortages.  Yes,  it would place more medical students in rural areas but the unfortunate reality is that the jobs and training positions remain in metropolitan areas.

The Australian Medical Students Association strongly urges the federal government to divert any funding for a new medical school in to a more sustainable solution of rural specialty training positions and jobs.