Plans to stop recruiting doctors from overseas will do little to reduce the oversupply of professionals in cities but will worsen rural doctor shortages, according to Mr Mark Burdack, Executive Director of the Murray Darling Medical School initiative.

"Reduced recruitment of international doctors will mean higher rates of unnecessary deaths in rural and regional Australia. Many rural towns are reliant on overseas doctors to meet the basic health needs of their communities. This is because city-educated Australian medical graduates continue to shun rural practice.

"The problem, as city medical schools have conceded, is that city-educated Australian medical graduates just don't want to work in the bush." 

Mr Burdack said, "In the most recent survey of medical graduate attitudes to rural practice, 85 per cent of final year students indicated a preference for urban practice. And you simply cannot meet the needs of 30 per cent of the population with 15 per cent of the doctors."

"The immediate establishment of the proposed Murray Darling Medical School would play a vital role in replacing overseas sourced doctors with Australian medical graduates committed to practising in the bush." 

Rural-based medical schools have been proven to increase rural doctor numbers by preferentially selecting rural students who want to work in their own communities, and providing them with education and training in rural and regional areas. 

In 2012 the plan to open a rural medical school in western NSW was endorsed by a Senate inquiry into rural doctor shortages, and then in the 2013 election the Nationals made a public commitment to rural Australians to deliver the Murray Darling Medical School while in government. 

The National Party has also recently reiterated its commitment to the Murray Darling Medical School following the 2016 election. 

Mr Burdack said, "In northern Queensland, James Cook University has proven that rural medical schools can help to fix rural doctor shortages.

"Charles Sturt University and La Trobe University submitted a plan three years ago to establish the Murray Darling Medical School to address shortages in the most seriously under-serviced areas of western New South Wales and northern Victoria.

"There are hundreds of young rural Australians anxiously waiting on the government to announce when they will be able to enrol in a local medical program following the commitment to deliver the Murray Darling Medical School that was made in 2013," Mr Burdack said.

"Now the plans to stop overseas recruitment of doctors makes a decision on the Murray Darling Medical School even more urgent for rural Australia."