The number of medical students graduating in Australia has tripled in the last five years, but the struggle continues to attract and retain doctors in regions like the Eurobodalla.
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Dr Patrick Giddings said the Federal Government has put enormous resources into producing more doctors through new medical schools and extra training opportunities.
He said this year nationally the number of medical graduates was 3,700 compared to 1200 five years ago.
So where are they all?
“Well of course there is lag time before they start filtering out because they need to go through their junior hospital placements, usually in the city hospitals,” Dr Giddings said.
He said while the government was predicting that by 2030 there would actually be 7,000 too many doctors in Australia, it was the geographic distribution that still posed a problem.
“There are professional and social barriers to attracting people to rural and regional,” Dr Giddings said.
“People have connections in the city, and even though we’re getting more Australian graduates now, they are often from diverse multicultural groups whose communities and family networks may be in the city.”
The rural and regional doctor shortage has been going on for some years now, and this has put pressure on local doctors and medical specialists.
“We’ve got an ageing medical workforce, because it’s as though we’ve skipped a generation. We are required to be supervisors and teachers to those coming through, so it’s a matter of making sure we have the capacity to to do that and provide that support.”
On the bright side, Dr Giddings said people who have grown up in rural areas are more likely to remain, and importantly, people given support to train in rural areas are also more likely to stay.
“The buzz word now is the rural training ‘pipeline’, to create an easy path for those interested to train in rural and regional centres,” he said.
Dr Giddings is CEO of the Remote Vocational Training Scheme (RVTS), for which Moruya was fortunate to gain a place.
He said the scheme aims to help people already working in an area to be able to work and train in their current practice.
While we all share the problem of lack of access to doctors and specialists, Dr Gidding said the community could help by making new doctors feel welcome.
“It’s about community immersion, giving people a sense of belonging and helping make their experience here enjoyable,” he said.
“It’s all about the carrot, not the stick.”
