All eyes on rural generalists this budget, says ACRRM

3 minute read


With rural generalism set to be officially recognised as a specialty in the coming months, the rural GP college is hoping for an injection of funds.


Rural generalism is not even an official specialty yet, and the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine are warning ahead of this year’s election that they’re going to need a bigger boat for all the registrars clamouring for a place.

The college, which also trains rural GPs, is asking for $100 million over the next four years to increase the rural generalist training scheme from 100 positions to 500.

Last year, the training scheme was oversubscribed by 90% – and while numbers for this year’s intake are still being finalised, it is again expected to be oversubscribed by a significant proportion.

The college has been able to negotiate with the federal government to take on the excess number of registrars thus far, but recognises the need for a more sustainable solution.

ACRRM president Dr Rod Martin told The Medical Republic that the college had consistently proven the program’s value.

“We keep on doing a really good job of overshooting our numbers,” he said.

“So let’s … set a bigger target, and fund that target.”

Given the funding, Dr Martin reckoned ACRRM would have a good chance at filling all 500 places for the 2026 training year.

The other big ask from the college in the training space was to shore up prevocational training opportunities for junior doctors in the rural primary care space.

“Ever since I didn’t have so much grey hair, [prevocational years] have always been that black hole,” Dr Martin said.

“You’ve got lots of enthusiasm and even lots of really good understanding [of primary care and rural medicine] at a medical student level, and it gets dissipated, discouraged – laughed at, often – when junior doctors go through their j-doc years in a larger hospital.”

To that end, ACRRM is asking for $30m annually to fund an ACRRM-run “fit for purpose, educational and assessment support” program for junior doctors.

Of course, all of those registrars training toward a rural generalist fellowship will need MBS items of their own.

To fund these items, ACRRM pointed to the estimated $6.5b annual budget underspend on health services for rural communities.

“Appropriate remuneration for [rural generalists] through MBS will enable this workforce in delivering broad and advanced specialised services within their rural, remote, and First Nations communities, while also providing essential medical care,” the college said.

Other proposals included in ACRRM’s official pre-budget submission include funding a national campaign to promote the rural generalist skillset to communities, an intergovernmental taskforce tackling rural maternity centre closures, targeted money going toward rural community infrastructure and appropriate remuneration for senior clinical consultant services of experienced rural doctors.

“[We need] some sort of recognition for our supervisors when they have to step out of their out of their consultation [for supervision purposes],” Dr Martin said.

“We’re doing it because we’re supervisors, but in every other parallel setting in the country the supervisors are paid for that supervision – whereas for us, it’s downtime and makes you run later by another 15 minutes.”

No date has been set for the 2025 federal election at time of writing. However, it is likely to come before the budget is handed down.

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