AMA Summit on medical workforce: Too many doctors, few training opportunities in communities that need them most
“Fifteen years ago, the problem was that we did not have enough doctors. Today, we are now graduating record numbers of medical students, but do not have enough postgraduate training places in the areas and specialties where they are most needed.”
This is one of the statements of Australian Medical Association (AMA) President Dr Michael Gannon at the AMA Summit held on 3rd March in Melbourne as he talked about the problems of medical work force, particularly in rural communities.
The AMA Medical Workforce and Training Summit, attended by 80 participants in different sectors, discussed the primary medical workforce challenges such as maldistribution, shortages of practitioners in some specialty areas, and lack of training places for medical graduates.
Among the issues tackled were:
- Limited access to a doctor particularly in rural and remote areas,
- Abundance of medical schools but lack of training grounds for medical students
- Inadequate opportunities in rural and remote areas for postgraduate training
- Depending on short-term solutions such as opening a new medical school and importing doctors from overseas
Dr Gannon said, “For many Australians, access to a doctor remains a problem, particularly in rural and remote areas.”
“The take home message from the day was that Australia does not need any more medical school places. There was a clear recognition that the focus needs to shift away from pumping more students into medical schools towards giving medical students more opportunities to train in rural areas, as well as delivering postgraduate training places in the areas and specialties where they are needed.”, he added.
As a solution Dr Gannon proposed, “We need smarter policies than we have seen from governments in the past. All too often, the opening of a new medical school, or importing more doctors from overseas, is seen as the solution to our medical workforce needs. This mindset is driven by short-term political needs, rather than the long-term health needs of our communities.”
The Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) shares the same views when they reiterated their opposition to the establishment of the new medical school in Murray-Darling Medical School.
AMSA President Alex Farrell argued, “The Murray-Darling Medical School proposal has been gathering dust on Ministers’ desks for more than five years because it lacks merit and won’t fix the workforce issues it claims to address,”
“New medical schools are expensive, take years to produce doctors, and add to the numbers of medical school graduates when there are already more graduating medical students than available internships and vocational training positions.
“Announcing a new medical school is politically attractive, but it is a short-sighted waste of taxpayer money.”
He criticised the proposal on the grounds that, “Universities want medical schools for the prestige they bring. They boost ATAR scores and are lucrative marketing opportunities, but those aren’t reasons to invest tens of millions of Government funds into a school that experts know won’t solve anything.”
The AMSA President also emphasized that Australia already has enough medical schools especially in urban areas.
He said, “Australia has one of the highest ratios of medical schools per capita in the developed world, with 22 schools, including Macquarie Medical School opening this week and Curtin University opening in 2017.
“Medical students already study in the regions identified by the Murray-Darling Medical School proposal as part of federally-funded Rural Clinical Schools – it makes no sense to duplicate something that already exists and expect different results,
“All the focus has been on adding more and more medical students to the system, hoping that somehow this would spill over into rural practice. It doesn’t work.
“You can do medical school in rural areas, you can intern in rural areas, but you can’t complete specialty training in the bush. What we need are opportunities to work in rural areas after medical school. That’s when country doctors are really made,” AMSA President Alex Farrell affirmed.
Image: Jason Tong – flickr
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