A recent study has shown that a lack of financial support for rural health students is having a collateral effect on rural workforce retention.
A new study published in BMJ Open has reignited calls from rural health advocates to better support doctors-in-training across rural placements.
A major portion of this came back to the oft-repeated need for more sustainable and pro-active funding for not just rural health but how rurally placed students can be financially supported.
Other elements of education such as high-quality supervision, cultural awareness training and pathways for interdisciplinary education and collaboration were also touted for their value to student placements.
Financial support for rural students – or a lack of it – was singled out.
The Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) said the lack of funding was a major barrier for rural students to even enter medical education.
“Rural origin students are more likely to become rural doctors, but many simply can’t afford to pay their way through medical school,” RDAA president Dr RT Lewandowski said.
“Sustaining six or seven years of university study with demanding academic requirements as well as completing more than 2000 prac placement hours makes it nearly impossible for someone to study medicine without significant financial support, usually from their family.
“There is a massive maldistribution of doctors in our country, leaving us chronically short in rural and remote areas.”
The RDAA has also backed studies that show students with rural origins are more likely work in areas of similar rurality, which would then assist with local workforce shortages.
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Placement poverty is not an unheard-of concept with a new government backed fund to prac students coming into effect from July 1.
However, this payment has received widespread scrutiny due to its ineffective total of $331.65 per week, which remains well below the minimum wage.
The payment is only available to students studying teaching, midwifery, nursing or social work; it is not available for students studying medicine.
Greens deputy leader Mehreen Faruqi called the program “overly complex, poorly targeted and far too stingy to make a real difference”.
This sentiment has also been backed by the RACGP, which praised the BMJ Open study for providing greater academic evidence for issues already familiar to those on the rural health frontlines.
“The government has a loan package where, if you are a medical student and want to do a placement overseas, so experience and overseas country, the government will give you a low fee loan to cover your expenses while you’re doing that,” RACGP rural chair Dr Michael Clements told The Medical Republic.
“But if you want to do a placement in your own country, in a rural, remote area that needs you, they won’t give you any of that loan support.
“We’re actually incentivising our students to go overseas rather than experience a good, true rural medicine.”
