Charlotte Varcoe
REGIONAL medical trainee numbers are expected to double in the coming years following a $19.7m funding injection by the federal government.
It was announced Flinders University received the funding in an effort to push for more medical students to settle in the regions, including Mount Gambier/Berrin.
Currently there are up to nine medical students studying in Mount Gambier/Berrin each year at the university with those numbers expected to double after 2025.
The funding will allow for 40 extra students each year to be able to complete their training regionally from 2025 and allow Flinders University to extend its program so students can undertake the entire four years study regionally.
Flinders University deputy dean Robyn Aitken said over time the university had attracted students to the region with many spending 12 months placements.
“Having the four years of the medical course in the regions rather than metropolitan Adelaide will do two things,” Ms Aitken said.
“It will give country people a chance to study medicine close to home and it will also mean that people are embedded in those communities and they are much more likely to remain when their practice ends.”
She said the increase in medical trainees would slowly increase over the years due to health services already being stretched.
“It will be staged, it will not be all of a sudden Mount Gambier will have double the number of students – that will happen over a number of years as students work through the program,” Ms Aitken said.
“That will give us time to put more staff on the ground to support the students.”
She said following the difficulties members of the public had expressed in finding and keeping general practitioners, the initiative would then add additional graduates into the health system.
“We have an emphasis on general practice and the practice that spans across general practice and in the hospital as a rule generally,” Ms Aitken said.
“We say that we have around a third of people who study as general practitioners across the central corridor and about a third of those people are currently studying.”
She said the government had a range of other incentives around supporting general practice in the healthcare sector but remained adamant it was all about experience.
“The better experience people have when they are learning, the more embedded they become in the communities,” Ms Aitkens said.
“This means the more likely they are to say this life is fantastic and we have experienced it ourselves instead of not knowing because the unknown is really scary for recruiting workforce.”
Minister for Health and Wellbeing Chris Picton said training more doctors in South Australia and having their training take place entirely in regional areas was “absolutely vital” to ensuring the future pipeline of regional doctors.
“We know that doctors who are trained in regional areas and who have a connection to their local communities are more likely to stay and practice there,” Mr Picton said.
“I have been strongly advocating for an increase in the number of medical places in South Australia.”
