Volume 201 - Issue 10
Rural clinical school outcomes: what is success and how long do we wait for it?
Authors: David Garne, Mark Wilson and Ian G Wilson
Med J Aust 2014; 201 (10): 575. || doi: 10.5694/mja14.00965
Published online: 17 November 2014
Published online: 17 November 2014
Increasing the national quota of students from rural backgrounds
To the Editor: Do we sense a touch of frustration in the letter from Adam and colleagues1 in describing the outcomes of their rural clinical school (RCS) program? Career choices within medicine are influenced by many factors, and we agree with their comment that it is impossible to compel and unreasonable to expect all RCS graduates to enter rural practice. However, a factor that they have not taken into account is that of rural student recruitment, which has been shown by numerous studies, together with a positive rural exposure during training, to be a major factor in rural career decision making.2-5 If, as they suggest, currently only half of RCS graduates can be expected to choose a rural career, with the present requirement for medical schools to admit 25% of their intake from a rural background, is it time for this requirement to be reviewed upward?
In our experience, it is not all doom and gloom. At the University of Wollongong, we have far exceeded our 25% rural background admission requirement. Over the past 4 years, our intake of domestic students with a rural background (Australian Standard Geographical Classification – Remoteness Areas 2–5) has averaged 67%. Although we are too young to have longer-term data, our experience of selecting students with a rural background — together with a significant rural exposure during the program with an emphasis on generalism — is translating to an average of 43% of our graduates choosing internships in rural settings, and 61% choosing internships outside of metropolitan areas.
We will be following the longer-term career choices of our graduates with interest, but feel that to date we are on track to achieve our mission of producing young doctors for regional, remote and rural Australia.
Competing interests
No relevant disclosures.
References
- Adam WR, Wright JR, McColl GJ. Rural clinical school outcomes: what is success and how long do we wait for it? Med J Aust 2014; 200: 581. 1
- Walker JH, Dewitt DE, Pallant JF, Cunningham CE. Rural origin plus a rural clinical school placement is a significant predictor of medical students' intentions to practice rurally: a multi-university study. Rural Remote Health 2012; 12: 1908. 2
- Laven GA, Beilby JJ, Wilkinson D, McElroy HJ. Factors associated with rural practice among Australian-trained general practitioners. Med J Aust 2003; 179: 75-79. 3
- Wilkinson D, Laven G, Pratt N, Beilby J. Impact of undergraduate and postgraduate rural training, and medical school entry criteria on rural practice among Australian general practitioners: national study of 2414 doctors. Med Educ 2003; 37: 809-814. 4
- Laven G, Wilkinson D. Rural doctors and rural backgrounds: how strong is the evidence? A systematic review. Aust J Rural Health 2003; 11: 277-284. _GoBack