Dean of the University of Sydney Medical School Professor Bruce Robinson contends there are not enough positions in rural hospitals or in rurally-based specialist training programs, and wannabe country doctors are being turned away.

“At least 60 per cent of students in the Dubbo/Orange rural clinical school would have preferred to work as a young doctor in a rural hospital but many missed out because there were too many applicants for the positions available,” he said.

The University of Sydney’s School of Rural Health operates  Dubbo and Orange campuses with a view to providing visiting students with the best medical training and a country experience that will encourage them to settle and work in rural and remote Australia.

Professor Robinson has defended them after Charles Sturt University (CSU) medical consultant Emeritus Professor John Dwyer said rural clinical schools in Australia had failed to increase the proportion of medical graduates moving to work outside major cities.

Professor Dwyer said the most recent meeting of the Federation of Rural Australian Medical Educators, including representatives from all the major city medical schools, had shown they were “not making any real difference” to the number of rural doctors.

“Not one city medical school was able to report that their efforts had seen an increase in the number of doctors actually working in rural practice,” he said.

Professor Dwyer said almost half the GPs working in rural areas were trained overseas, and rural communities would become more reliant on recruiting doctors from outside Australia in the future if current policies were maintained.

CSU is currently waiting for the federal government to respond to a cross-party Senate committee recommendation that the university establish its own medical school. 

Professor Robinson has provided “recent data” to support his argument that the Dubbo and Orange campuses are making a positive impact on the rural medical workforce.

“To suggest otherwise is misleading and contrary to the emerging evidence,” he said.

Professor Robinson said this year 34 doctors working in Dubbo or Orange hospitals, or as “local GPs”, had their first experience of rural medicine at the campuses.

He reported a steady increase in the number of School of Rural Health students who after graduating as doctors went to work in Dubbo, Orange or other rural communities.

Of the students of the Orange and Dubbo campuses who graduated in 2012, 38 per cent were working in non-metropolitan hospitals.

Professor Robinson said at least 60 per cent of the new doctors had wanted to launch their careers in the bush but a “lack of places for these young doctors in rural hospitals and in other rural training programs” had prevented many from doing so.

“Based on the data, we are proposing the (rural clinical skill) program be expanded to accommodate more students and training of other health professionals,” he said.

“We wouldn’t be doing that if it was not working.”