ID-5184 Wonca Abstracts supplement A-K 13-10-23 - Flipbook - Page 153
WONCA 2023 Supplement 1: WONCA 2023 abstracts (A–K)
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Developing rural-based specialist training pathways
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Dr Brendan Condon, Barry Morphett
Deakin University
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The problem of the dwindling rural and regional medical workforce has been recognised for many
decades, including general practitioners and the other specialists that support them. The weight of
national and international research supports medical training of rural background individuals, within
rural settings, to produce the maximum number of individuals to take up rural and regional medical
careers. Accordingly, rural and regional-based training has been introduced into medical schools
across the country. Despite this move, the rural and regional medical workforce numbers continue to
decline.
A deficit remains in this rural and regional training plan. During the years that the majority of medical
trainees are establishing long-term relationships, starting families and ‘putting down roots’, they have
been required to move to metropolitan areas in order to pursue vocational training for their chosen
career. Medical training needs to continue in regional and rural settings, across these transformative
years, if a reversal of the decline in rural and regional workforce is to occur.
In 2017, the Federal Government announced funding for organisations across Australia to facilitate the
growth of the rural and regional medical workforce. Over the last five years, one such organisation
has engaged with regional specialists, health services, training providers, trainees and government
to facilitate the creation of vocational training pathways within a rural region of Australia. During this
period, training pathways have been, or are being, developed in the disciplines of general medicine,
general surgery, psychiatry, emergency medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology.
Further, this organisation is also working to enable students and junior doctors to investigate potential
career pathways and complete professional development at an early stage in their careers.
These programs have begun to produce specialists who are now working in rural and regional
Australian communities.
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