It’s true that we need more doctors in the country, but more medical students is not the answer. Medical students, like myself, currently study in Orange, Wagga Wagga, Bathurst and Bendigo, and if we want to remain in the country after finishing our degree, we need to be able to train and work rurally after medical school.

As of Tuesday night, the Murray-Darling Medical School proposal has been rebranded into the Murray-Darling Medical Network. This is a double-edged sword. Thankfully, the Federal Government has seen sense and has committed to investing in the Rural Clinical Schools which already operate in the Murray-Darling Basin region, staffed by dedicated local doctors and educators.

However, an unknown amount of the $94.5 million has been earmarked for CSU to open a small medical school in Orange, in what appears to be a concession to The Nationals rather than a considered solution to the doctor distribution problem.  

Orange already hosts medical students from the University of Sydney. This funding move represents a waste of money in trying to recreate an existing successful Rural Clinical School. Despite the Government’s claim that no new Commonwealth Supported Places will be added, it is estimated that there will be an increase of up to 60 full-fee paying international students at a time of a national flood of graduates and shortage of post-graduate training positions.

More medical students cannot fix the problems our rural communities face in accessing medical care because graduating from medical school is not enough to qualify as an independent doctor. A young graduate must complete five to 10 years of post-graduate training after medical school. This is known as the “training pipeline” and at the moment the pipeline is blocked with more graduates than training positions available at every level.

The first hurdle is gaining a rural internship position, a job medical graduates hold for the first year after graduating. At the moment, medical students and young doctors already want to move to rural areas for their internship but due to the oversupply of students and shortage of positions, they need to move to the city.

Students at this new medical school will only be qualified to work as specialists in 10 to 15 years, unlike the thousands of junior doctors who have already graduated, are looking for training positions and would love to work in the country - if only there were the opportunities.

Federal funding would have been better spent on fixing the training pipeline to ensure that doctors are actually able train, work, and settle in the country. The AMA and other professional bodies are in agreement that new medical student places cannot and will not fix the rural doctor shortage.

Unless the pipeline is fixed first, pumping more students through will only result in a class of graduates without the training positions to practice medicine, and a medical degree without post-graduate training will not be worth the paper it’s written on.