A new analysis has aligned the GP colleges on where to focus to attract more students to general practice.
A triple header of medical bodies has collaborated on a landmark analysis of how universities and medical schools are shaping the future of the general practice workforce.
The RACGP, ACRRM and Medical Deans Australia and New Zealand (MDANZ) worked together on the analysis to streamline the planning for potential reforms to assist with workforce shortages in general practice.
Regional, rural and remote communities were a focus of the research, with the study based off of the incoming 2025 Australian GP Training (AGPT) program cohort.
According to the analysis, around one in three Australian medical graduates progress into GP training.
It’s a very different picture than that painted by the annual Medical Deans survey of intentions to pursue general practice, which fell from 13.3% in 2020 to 9.4% in 2024.
The introduction of a dedicated ‘rural generalism’ option in 2021 was successful in kickstarting some interest with an additional 5.7% of students indicating intent.
This raised the collective interest in generalist careers up to 15.1%, with new analysis also showing that twice as many graduates will enter GP training as those who initially expressed interest.
The universities turning out the highest proportion of GPs-to-be were James Cook University, located in north Queensland, and the University of Notre Dame, located in Freemantle.
More than half the graduates from both universities progressed into the Australian GP Training Program.
In terms of absolute numbers, though, Monash University in Melbourne came out on top, with 106 alumni commencing as GP registrars in 2025.
Both colleges have been advocating for new incentives to be added to encourage medical students to enter general practice.
“The federal government has put out some pretty good incentives to try and offset the offset that differential in the lead up to the last election, to try and encourage people to come and do general practice,” ACRRM president Dr Rod Martin told The Medical Republic.
“The government’s got a responsibility to try and take up some of the programs that universities are trying to put in place.
“Universities across Australia are doing as much as they possibly can, I think, to try and restructure their training programs, try and restructure even some of their selection processes, to improve uptake.”
This collaboration has been heralded by both colleges as an important time to align their focus on improving general practice workforce quality and quantity.
“We recognise that we certainly need more graduates … choosing general practice,” RACGP president Dr Michael Wright told TMR.
“For too long, Australia hasn’t produced enough GPs for our growing, ageing population, and we definitely need more GPs all around the country, particularly in rural and remote Australia.
“This university of origin data is trying to understand which universities are associated with more junior doctors choosing general practice, and trying to understand why.
“You’d want to support the universities that are definitely are producing more general practice graduates, because that’s what Australia needs.”
