But one prominent GP-producing university appears to have missed out.
The federal government will fund another 100 university places for aspiring doctors, but only universities which have a good track record of producing GPs will get them.
Education Minister Jason Clare announced on Monday that 10 universities would be receiving 10 of the new Commonwealth Supported Places (CSPs) each.
Namely, the places are going to: Charles Sturt University, Flinders University, Griffith University, Monash University, The University of Melbourne, The University of New England, The University of New South Wales, The University of Notre Dame Australia, The University of Sydney and The University of Wollongong.
Notably absent though is Townsville’s James Cook University, where more than half of graduates progress onto the Australian GP Training Program.
In order to qualify, each institution had to demonstrate that they would focus the places on primary care training and provide additional rotations in general practice.
Australian Medical Students Association president Melody Ahfock told The Medical Republic that it was encouraging to see specific universities targeted for their ability to produce GPs.
“However, this isn’t necessarily a guarantee that these CSPs will mean that there are more doctors in the right place and right specialty,” she said.
“Because without adequate workforce planning and positive placement experiences, increasing medical students, even in good universities, will not guarantee new GPs or doctors that will help fill workforce gaps.
“These students are still at high risk of getting stuck in existing specialty training bottlenecks, which ultimately fails to provide healthcare to the Australians who need it most.”
Even if all 100 students were to choose to specialise in general practice, these medical students will not be entering the general practice workforce for another decade at least.
Related
“Things like positive placement experiences or good GP role models are part of what needs to happen in order to increase the likelihood that these students, as part of these new CSPs, will become GPs,” Ms Ahfock said.
RACGP president Dr Michael Wright welcomed the 100 new places and said it was “gratifying” to see investment in universities that prioritise GPs.
“The Government has made a commitment, as have these 10 universities,” he said.
“The end result is that more medical graduates will move into general practice and serve their communities.”
While somewhat trivial in the grand scheme, ten places is not an insignificant proportion of total CSPs offered per medical school per year; estimates put Monash University as offering around 140 CSPs per year currently, for instance.
It’s also not an insignificant dollar amount. Universities receive around $40,000 per full-time medical student on a CSP per year, meaning that 10 new places results in an extra $400,000 in university income per year.
The federal government plans to release an additional 50 medical student CSPs in 2028 and open a new, demand-driven stream to guarantee CSPs for Indigenous medical students from 2026 onward.
