As Western NSW communities cry out for doctors, Dr Mark Arnold reports that by 2030 there may be an oversupply of 7000 doctors in Australia who cannot access specialty training in the big smoke or the country.

The rheumatologist serves as Head of the School of Rural Health of the University of Sydney. This week he continued to argue for the extension of the rural training pipeline as the university was challenged by federal Member for Calare Andrew Gee over its opposition to the establishment of the proposed Murray Darling Medical School.

Recently Mr Gee told the Federal Parliament that the “big urban universities” had failed to “produce doctors willing to practise medicine in the country”. Dr Arnold responded with a plea for more effort in extending the pipeline so medical graduates wanting a rural career could gain intern and residency jobs and go on to postgraduate specialty training, including rural and generalist training, in rural and regional sites.

On Wednesday Dr Arnold reported a rise in the number of medical graduates in Australia from 2139 in 2008 to 3668 in 2016 . “At this rate, by 2030 Australia will have an oversupply of 7000 doctors who will be unable to continue their path to specialty training in both regional and metropolitan areas,” he said. In April the University of Sydney welcomed $3 million in federal funding to operate postgraduate training hubs in Dubbo,  Broken Hill and Lismore.

Charles Sturt and La Trobe universities are seeking the transfer of 180 student places from existing universities to the proposed new medical school with campuses in Orange, Wagga Wagga and Bendigo. Its Foundation Professor of Medicine and Surgery, Professor John Dwyer, said Australia “should not be training more doctors than it is currently training”. “We have doubled the number of medical graduates over the last 10 or so years,” he said. “That was an effort by the government to use market forces to force people to go to the country. That didn’t work.”