Attracting more medical workers

eakin University leaders in Geelong believe a medicaltraining program that encourages General Practitioners from rural areas to work where they are originally from will benefit Wimmera communities.

University Rural General Practice lecturer Jessica Beattie said a Rural Training Stream program that started in January was already showing signs of success for major Wimmera centres.

Ms Beattie said medical students originally from regional cities Horsham, Ararat and Stawell had begun placement in their hometowns.

“The aim of the program is to widen access to medical students for residents from the southwest and Grampians regions of Victoria, which is Deakin’s rural training footprint,” she said.

Deakin’s Rural Community Clinical School Director Associate Professor Lara Fuller said rural and regional areas faced a persistent GP shortage.

Ass Prof Fuller said evidence globally showed medical students from rural backgrounds who completed extended training in rural clinical schools were more likely to work in rural areas.

She said there were also more opportunities, amid the highly competitive nature of a placement-admissions process, for students from rural backgrounds to gain experience in rural and regional settings.

“And there is emerging evidence the best outcomes occur when students from rural communities are able to complete their training within their own geographic region,” she said.

Deakin University’s program has also won praise of a leading western Victorian medical figure.

Grampians Health chief medical officer Matthew Hadfield said the Deakin program made sense and was ‘fantastic’, echoing the importance of increasing the number of GPS.

“The statistics show the further you have to travel to get health care the more reluctant you are in talking and dealing with a medical issue,” he said.

He said the program would make a huge difference for health outcomes for people who lived in the Wimmera.

Mr Hadfield’s role with Grampians Health includes overseeing medical services in the Wimmera.

Grampians Health formed late last year from a merger between Wimmera Health Care Group, Stawell Regional Health, Edenhope District Memorial Hospital and Ballarat Health Services.

Drivers behind the merger were to increase medical practitioners working in the region and broadly improve medical services across western Victoria.