Charles Sturt University (CSU) will outline its argument for an overhaul of rural medical education policies at a Senate Committee hearing in Albury today.

 

CSU President and Vice-Chancellor Professor Andrew Vann, Emeritus Professor John Dwyer AO and CSU Dean of Science Professor Nick Klomp will appear before the Senate Community Affairs Reference Committee on the factors affecting the supply of health services and medical professionals in rural areas.

 

CSU’s submission to the Senate Committee calls for the establishment of a new, genuinely rural medical school to expand opportunity for rural students, and substantially increase the retention of Australian medical graduates in rural practice

 

The submission questions whether increasing incentive payments or forcing doctors to work in rural areas is the long-term answer to addressing the shortage of doctors in rural and remote Australia.

 

“We have been applying ‘band-aids’ to rural medical workforce policy failures for so long that we have lost sight of the illness we are trying to cure,” said Professor John Dwyer, former head of medicine at the University of NSW’s medical school and a consultant to CSU on rural medical and health workforce programs.

 

“The problem is that the majority of medical students are from metropolitan areas, and all the evidence shows us that they simply won’t work in rural and remote Australia in the numbers needed to address rural doctor shortages.

 

“National and international evidence tells us that if we train rural students in the bush, we are significantly more likely to retain rural medical practitioners in the bush,” he said.

 

Professor Dwyer also questioned the effectiveness of financial incentives to attract and retain doctors in the bush.

 

“It is one thing to argue very properly that a rural doctor should be compensated for the tremendous job they do by targeting funding to address the increased cost of rural practice,” he said.

 

“It is an entirely different thing to argue that money should be used to attract doctors to rural practice. What sort of doctors will this attract?

 

“We cannot build a sustainable rural health system by forcing or enticing doctors to work in rural areas if they don’t want to.

 

“The only way we can start to seriously address the problem is by making sure we train the right students in the right location, using the right curriculum.

 

“That means recruiting more rural students, training them in medical schools integrated into health faculties at regional universities, and ensuring that they are exposed to a curriculum that gives the skills and resilience to work in rural and remote locations in the long-term,” Professor Dwyer said.

 

The CSU submission calls for the rapid uptake of inter-professional health education in rural areas, integrating medical, nursing, allied health and human services education.

 

Improving the transparency of decision making, accountability of providers and reliance on evidence-based recruitment and retention policies is also recommended by CSU.

 

CSU has submitted a proposal to the NSW and federal governments to establish a new rural medical program.