Oversupply of doctor graduates leads to questions on new medical school

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ELEANOR HALL: Now to the furore over the Federal Government's allocation of $20 million for another undergraduate medical school in Perth.

The Australian Medical Association and other health lobbies argue there's an oversupply of graduates and that the money should be going towards intern and postgraduate training.

The Rural Doctors Association is also concerned.

It says there are still not enough doctors in regional areas but that a new school in Perth won't solve the problem.

Bridget Brennan has our report.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: Cardiologist Professor Gerard Carroll trains graduate doctors in Wagga Wagga in New South Wales.

He believes Australia has plenty of medical graduates so he was surprised to hear that there'll be another medical school opened at Curtin University in Perth.

GERARD CARROLL: I was surprised. I was surprised that there was another medical school that was based in a capital city.

There are certainly concerns throughout Australia and throughout medical education circles that the number of medical students in training now has saturated resources and capacities to train them. 

In fact, we've probably got too many graduates in relation to the number of training positions following graduation.

So it is extremely difficult now to find intern positions and training positions in various fields for the huge number of graduates that are coming through each year.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: Professor Carroll has seen increasing pressure on hospitals and clinics where graduates need to do two years of junior medical training.

GERARD CARROLL: So for example you might have 10 or 12 or 15 medical students seeing a sick patient and then another group come in, and another group come in, because there's so many students to see relatively few numbers of patients.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: The Australian Medical Association is angry the Federal Government will spend $20 million on the new school, instead of on training.

The Rural Doctors Association has also expressed concern.

The association's president is Dr Dennis Pashen.

DENNIS PASHEN: We've had a rapid increase in the number of doctors produced in Australia.

It's gone from about, it's actually doubled in the last 10 years, but you've got this very large bulge that's there and you have to fund training places, and if you don't have enough intern and second year training places in hospitals, you get a backlog.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: Given that bulge, as you describe it, would you like to have seen that $20 million on this new undergraduate school spent on training instead?

DENNIS PASHEN: Well, I think you need to have a measured approach and you have to look at how you're going to provide that pathway into rural practice.

It's going to take five to seven years before these people are going to go out there.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: This morning the Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley defended the decision.

SUSSAN LEY: One of the things that has really come home to me on my visits to the West is the high number of overseas trained doctors, particularly in rural and remote WA, and there are no dollars in our forward budget attributed to this little.

So WA Government has stepped, the Curtin University has stepped up, and yes, there will be new Commonwealth funded places into the future and I look forward to those students servicing the communities of Western Australia.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: The former WA Health Department boss Neale Fong did a feasibility study on the new Perth medical school.

NEALE FONG: Well, the main premise for the medical school from Curtin was that there is a shortage of doctors in Western Australia and an overreliance on overseas trained doctors coming into Western Australia and filling those positions.

So this is a long term plan to prime that pipeline because it takes between five and 10 years for medical graduates to get into the system.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: But, Dr Dennis Pashen says a shortage of rural doctors is not an issue of under supply - the problem is that graduates aren't going bush.

DENNIS PASHEN: If Curtin's going to produce 25 per cent with a rural focus, that's good, but the other 75 per cent probably won't and we'll probably end up in the, you know, in the south-west quarter.

There are a number of doctors already being produced in Australia that will end up in sort of metropolitan, out of metropolitan areas.

BRIDGET BRENNAN: The Federal Government says it's getting a guarantee that training places will be provided by the West Australian Government.

Cardiologist Professor Gerard Carroll would rather get an assurance that more medical schools will be built in regional areas.

GERARD CARROLL: We did have a shortage, a substantial shortage 15, 20 years ago and that has certainly been more than compensated for.

There should be rural medical schools where the entire training or nearly the entire training is done out of regional centres.

ELEANOR HALL: That's cardiologist Gerard Carroll, ending Bridget Brennan's report.


Source : http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2015/s4237584.htm