SEVENTEEN new medical students have decided to make Dubbo their home for the year.
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The fourth year students are from the University of Sydney’s Medical Program and will train at the School of Rural Health.
There were an additional 15 who chose to study in Orange.
By training the students in Dubbo, the hope is they will want to work here once they graduate, School of Rural Health head of school Mark Arnold said.
“Last year, 63 per cent of graduating medical students who had attended a University of Sydney Rural School expressed a preference to work in a rural area, 82 per cent of whom where possible, would opt for a generalist career,” Mr Arnold said.
By the end of this year, Mr Arnold said the University of Sydney’s School of Rural Health would have educated 738 medical students.
“Next year another 32 final year medical students will train in Orange and Dubbo, and we are optimistic that many of them will, similar to their predecessors, express a strong preference to work rurally,” he said.
Mr Arnold said converting the students’ positive intentions into fully qualified rural doctors was a process of at least six years, and typically eight or more years of supervised vocational practice after graduation.
“Federal initiatives announced in February 2016 to fund dedicated rural medical training hubs at the existing rural Australian Rural Clinical Schools will commence in 2017 and offer structured pathways for medical graduates to spend the majority of their many years of vocational training in rural areas.”
The School of Rural Health was first established in 2001.