Rural and regional Australia have always had problems attracting permanent medical staff, but research has shown that doctors who train in these areas are more likely to stay on and build their lives and career there.
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00:00 Nestled in these mountainous ranges is Gundagai, divided by the mighty Murrumbidgee River and
00:07 surrounded with lush hills dotted with cattle.
00:11 The area is home to rural medical school graduate Dr Maggie Kate Minogue.
00:16 Hi, you want a quick?
00:18 Maggie Kate grew up in nearby Hardin before moving hundreds of kilometres away to Sydney to study.
00:24 So when I was looking at university options, I was really looking at Sydney, because Sydney and Newcastle actually,
00:32 they were the only places that offered undergraduate medicine.
00:35 She missed the rural lifestyle and after hearing about the Wagga Wagga campus, it was an opportunity she couldn't pass on.
00:43 Once I found out about that, there was nothing stopping me from going, I was getting there.
00:48 As a rural generalist, Maggie Kate has more training when it comes to her medical school.
00:53 More training when it comes to emergency and procedural skills.
00:57 The diversity of work was also an incentive.
01:00 There's so much variety in what we get, anything could walk through the door.
01:05 In any given day, I can go from cradle to grave.
01:10 She believes the single employer model alongside rural medical schools will play a critical role in helping diminish the rural doctor shortage in future.
01:19 I think there is a lot of optimism about future training pathways and encouraging the upcoming students,
01:28 both in the high school level but also in the university level, to embrace rural culture and to stay rural while training.
01:37 Long term medical student placements are also a way of helping bring doctors to the bush.
01:42 Research by the University of Queensland released last year showed those who complete a 12 week placement
01:47 combined with a two year training program are seven times more likely to stay in a small rural or remote location.
01:54 In Broken Hill in remote outback New South Wales, a group of fifth year medical students from the University of Adelaide
02:00 are proof of the potential success of these placements.
02:04 Sebastian Baker grew up in the leafy green outskirts of Adelaide's hills.
02:09 At the start of this year actually, I was thinking more so going into physician training,
02:15 so that's like doctors that work just in hospitals on the wards.
02:18 And then I decided to give rural fifth year a go and I was really exposed to this idea of rural generalism,
02:24 which is an idea that you're trained a bit more broadly.
02:28 As part of his year in Broken Hill, he's spent time working in the hospital and with organisations like the Royal Flying Doctors Service, where he finds himself today.
02:38 (gentle music)
02:40 [BLANK_AUDIO]