Is another regional medical school a good idea?

The campaign for a new medical school located in regional NSW and Victoria is gaining momentum

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The campaign for a new medical school located in regional NSW and Victoria is gaining momentum with the appointment of Professor John Dwyer as its foundation dean.

Opponents of the plan, which is a joint venture between La Trobe and Charles Sturt Universities, argue investment in medical education should go into creating more training places at rural clinical schools, rather than undergraduate spots.

But Professor Dwyer, Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales, says the proposed Murray Darling Medical School would not add to the “already bloated” numbers of medical students entering the training pipeline.

“The proposed medical school is seeking a redistribution of only 180 existing places annually … in a way that will be three-times more efficient in producing doctors for the region,” he argued in an opinion piece in The Australian newspaper.

With campuses at Bendigo in Victoria, and Orange and Wagga Wagga in NSW, the new school would shore up the future rural doctor workforce by keeping students, interns and trainees in the bush for all three phases of medical education, he said.

Professor Dwyer appealed to rural communities to get behind a campaign to support the initiative, which he said would add 1900 doctors to the region by 2050 and bring economic benefits of up to $2.5 billion.

“As politicians freely admit, it’s the squeaky wheel that gets the oil.”

The federal MP for Calare, Andrew Gee, is an ardent supporter. The National Party member is seeking a contribution of $50 million in federal money for the proposed school and has accused Sydney University of trying to block the school for selfish reasons.

Mr Gee told parliament last month that Sydney University was taking an “unnecessarily predatory and negative approach” to rural medical workforce training.

Big city universities had failed to produce doctors willing to practise medicine in the country, he said.

Associate Professor Mark Arnold, head of Sydney University’s School of Rural Health, which has campuses in Orange and Dubbo, said the push for new all-rural medical schools was misguided, even if it was well-intentioned.

Dr Arnold said building a new rural medical school would not solve the rural doctor shortage.

“What’s needed is a bigger, sustainable rural medical career training pipeline for junior doctors who want to work in regional and rural areas, long term,” he said, adding entry to the pipeline was already oversubscribed.

“This year, there were more than six applications for every intern job commencing at Dubbo Base Hospital and the Orange Health Service. Clearly, there’s no need for another medical school to feed the entrance to the pipeline.”

By the end of 2017, more than 800 medical students would have graduated after extended rural placements at Sydney’s Orange and Dubbo campuses.

“At graduation, 90% of these students tell us that they would prefer to work in rural areas,” Dr Arnold said.

Earlier this year, the government announced two new measures aimed at retention of rural doctors – new rural training places for 60 junior doctors in primary care, and funding for 26 rural training “hubs”.

The University of Sydney was granted $3 million to set up hubs in Broken Hill, Dubbo and Lismore to boost rural-based medical training and career pathways.