Plans to scrap a proposed medical school in favour of rural education networks have been welcomed.
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The plan would see La Trobe University abandon a joint proposal with Charles Sturt University for a rural medical school, which would have been based partly in Bendigo.
Australian Medical Students’ Association president Alex Farrell welcomed the governments refusal to fund the full Murray Darling Medical School proposal.
The group had opposed that plan, arguing specialist training was the best way to bridge the city-country healthcare divide.
Ms Farrel said the AMSA was glad to see budget money allocated for clinical schools in areas including Bendigo and Shepparton.
La Trobe now planned for a Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Medical) in Bendigo and Albury-Wodonga.
The course would provide a pathway into the University of Melbourne’s new Doctor of Rural Medicine degree, La Trobe pro vice-chancellor Robert Pike said.
“The government was obviously never going to created more commonwealth supported places for medical training,” he said.
“So now we have a way to be part of the solution of producing more rural doctors, which we are very pleased about.”
Melbourne University would move 30 existing student places from Melbourne to Shepparton, with 15 La Trobe biomedicine students guaranteed a spot. Students would then compete for the remaining spots.
Professor Pike said the focus would be on generalist doctors but said there was a need for more specialists.
“We hope to address both aims,” he said.
Federal member for Bendigo Lisa Chesters welcomed the La Trobe program funding, saying news medical students would be able to do all their training in rural areas was something that she and others had been calling for over a long period of time.
She was cautious about funding, saying she wanted to learn more from the minister about what Fairfax Media understood were plans to allocate two per cent of Commonwealth supported places to a pool of funded places across five rural medical network sites in Australia.
AMSA president Amy Farrell welcomed increases in the number of rural GP placements for junior doctors, but questioned the government’s decision to spend $100 million on undergraduate medical education and only invest in 100 vocational training positions.
“The junior doctors we currently have cannot train in rural areas – that is a problem that needs to be fixed,” Ms Farrell said.
She said specialist training was the hardest part of keeping junior doctors rural, with few places available in the country.
Tom O'Callaghan
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
I grew up in Bendigo and I want to tell your stories.
