A rural medical school with increasingly coveted spots up for grabs has clinched the interest of aspiring doctors with the help of the lifestyles and facilities on offer at Dubbo.
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Jack Luxford and Clare White were new converts to studying in the regional city they saw as offering professional and personal advantages.
With a total of 64 spots available across the Dubbo and Orange campuses of the University of Sydney's School of Rural Health each year, on Monday the pair were hoping a ballot to decide placements for 2016 would go their way.
The university reports that demand to study at its rural campuses has grown to the extent that there is more candidates than places available.
The pair were on the final day of a discovery tour of the university's Dubbo and Orange campuses undertaken by 56 second-year medical students.
Ms White, originally from the Gold Coast, said travelling west had proved a revelation.
"I expected to come out here and to feel like it was in the middle of nowhere - I'll be completely honest about that," she said.
Instead she found "a huge community, with "all of the resources, services, everything we've got back in Sydney".
Her weekend at Dubbo and Orange had been the clincher for her applying to spend either her third or her fourth year at one of the rural health campuses.
"Definitely, definitely, the only decision now is what year to come out, not so much whether or not," she said.
"I'd be really upset if I didn't get a place because it's just a fantastic opportunity that would definitely benefit us as medical students."
Mr Luxford said before the tour he had been "60, 70 per cent keen" to spend a year outside his home city of Sydney, but the first-hand experience had made him sure he wanted to.
"The idea of the closeness of the interaction between us as students and then the senior doctors and clinicians - you don't really get that in a big hospital," he said.
He anticipated the benefits of a year at Dubbo would be wide-ranging.
"It's just been so relaxing, the air is nicer, you could definitely spend a year here and I could chill out and get away from Sydney being busy and crowded and congested," he said.
"And have a great year, focus on medicine a bit, but also have a great time to just chill out and get to know the community."
Dubbo-based School of Rural Health student liaison officer Kiffin Miller said the students on the tour had been "blown away" and saw for themselves the advantages of entering the ballot.
"The teaching is fantastic, there's a lot of very committed and passionate people from the hospital, GP practices and others who tutor our students," she said.
"So they get a huge amount of support and a lot of one-on-one teaching, learning, and support here that they wouldn't get at the metro school, because the class sizes are so much smaller (here)."