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WITH centres across the north, including Tamworth, desperate for more doctors a deficit in training places means many graduates might not be able to help fill the gaps.
Yesterday, the first round of internship offers for 2013 was released and the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA) estimates more than 370 international students could miss out on positions next year, although the shortfall will not be known until final offers are released next month.
Hunter New England Health will take 100 interns, the same as last year, and while these graduate trainees will rotate through the service’s training hospitals including Tamworth and Armidale, the region’s acute doctor shortage is set to continue.
Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council chairman Kim Snowball said the 2012 class was expected to comprise more than 3500 graduates – an increase of more than 500 students on last year. It is the biggest number on record.
In NSW AMSA has predicted a shortfall of 123 positions, with 1040 anticipated graduates and 917 intern positions available.
Without the supervised year-long internship, these graduates will not be able to work as doctors.
Without the supervised year-long internship, these graduates will not be able to work as doctors.
Commonwealth-supported students are guaranteed an internship, but domestic and international full-fee paying students are not.
Acting director medical workforce at Hunter New England Health, Anthony Llewellyn, said 16 of the service’s intake of 100 interns would be at Tamworth hospital, with 14 positions recruited under rural preferential recruitment and the other interns allocated on a rotational basis.
The remaining internship positions will be filled by Health Education and Training Institute rounds, the first released yesterday.
Interns recruited through these rounds will undertake training across a number of sites, including John Hunter, Calvary Mater, Manning, Maitland, Belmont, Tamworth and Armidale
hospitals.
AMSA yesterday presented a petition of almost 6500 signatures to the country’s health ministers, calling for them
to create more internship positions urgently.
“To produce medical graduates and then not allow them to work as doctors is a waste of taxpayer dollars and valuable health system resources,” AMSA
president James Churchill said.
The Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council issued a statement yesterday that said the Commonwealth and state governments were working together to ensure that when the shortfall was known, measures would be implemented to quickly increase the number of intern placements.
The advisory council said it was considering additional positions in new settings such as the private and non-government sector, ensuring accreditation for any new places was fast-tracked, and identifying any additional capacity for intern rotation and places.
The issue was explored in the current edition of the Medical Journal of Australia and author Catherine Joyce, an associate professor at Monash University, said internships needed to take place in a wider range of settings.
“Now that would include private hospitals. It might include smaller hospitals in regional or rural areas,” she said.