February 24, 2023
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has called on governments to facilitate more regional and rural placements for medical school students to encourage future doctors to live and work outside major cities.
It comes following a study of more than 2000 University of Queensland medical students between 2011 and 2021.
All the students must do a six-week placement in a smaller rural community in their third year.
The study found:
- A total of 106 students chose to extend their rural placement beyond the initial six-week placement
- The students who also did two years of training in regional areas were seven times more likely to choose to work in regional Australia, compared with their colleagues who did neither.
The study also found that even those who just did the 12-week placement were three times more likely to work outside the major cities.
RACGP Rural Chair Associate Professor Michael Clements urged the nation’s leaders to heed the study’s results.
“This study backs what the Royal Australian College of GPs has been saying for many years,” he said.
“We must do more to fix the maldistribution of GPs in Australia that leaves many communities outside of major cities without adequate access to general practice care.
“A key to solving this problem is encouraging and supporting future doctors to live and work in regional or rural areas and exposing them to rural general practice early on makes a real difference.
“There is evidence that students who originally come from rural areas have a high return rate, especially if they are exposed to rural placements during their study at university.
“However, it’s also important to note that the same applies for other students who work in a rural placement and report a positive experience. If students are placed in a nurturing, supportive training practice environment and embraced by the community – they will be inclined to return.”
