End-to-end medical training in the Murray-Darling Network
Rural and regional training places needed to help keep rural doctors in their communities.
The AMA has made submission to the evaluation of the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network (MDMSN). The AMA supports providing local, rural training opportunities for medical students and for them to remain in rural areas on completion of their university degree, providing they are properly funded, supported and implemented.
Inherent in this is providing sufficient prevocational and vocational medical training places within the area so genuine end-to-end training opportunities are available. It provides opportunity and access for rural students to pursue a career in medicine and keep them connected to the community they live in.
In our submission we expressed concern that without careful planning there is a risk graduates from rural medical schools will move to metropolitan areas if subsequent training places are not established. They are unlikely to return to rural areas once they have established their professional and personal networks elsewhere. Key to addressing these concerns is establishing robust and independent means to measure outcomes and success of the end-to-end medical training programs.
Doctors who come from a rural background or spend time training in a rural area are more likely to take up long-term practice in a rural location. Programs that support medical students, doctors in training and fellows to train, live and work in rural and regional areas across all career stages are essential to address geographic distribution and improve access to care for rural communities.
The MDMSN is an Australian Government initiative that has established 5 rurally based university medical school programs in New South Wales and Victoria, allowing medical students to do most of their study and training in the Murray–Darling region. This enables these students to immerse themselves in rural-based training.
Our submission reflected and drew upon existing policies, positions and past submissions which all relate to the issues impacting the rural training pipeline.
Most recently, the AMA released a new position statement titled AMA principles for creating socially accountable primary medical programs in Australia. The purpose of this position statement is to explore how medical schools in Australia can be held socially accountable for graduating medical students who possess the skill set to meet community needs including an interest to work rurally.
