Rural training has proved vital for the retention of rural doctors in a recent Notre Dame University study

Narrogin’s only obstetrician says training doctors “as quickly as possible in the city” is vital to address the critical shortage of GPs in regional areas. GP obstetrician Dr Clare Hardie is originally from Brisbane but found a home in Western Australia after moving to Fremantle to study at the University of Notre Dame, going on to complete a Rural Clinical School placement in Narrogin in 2015. “The university has lots of rural immersion,” Dr Hardie said. “In first-year medicine we came to the Wheatbelt. “During my third year of studies, I met my now-husband and decided to do rural medicine.” Dr Hardie is one of 1220 medical graduates from nine Australian universities who took part in research led by Notre Dame into the factors affecting doctors’ decisions to work regionally later in their careers. The Australia-first study found providing ample opportunity for medical staff and students to train in rural areas was vital for retaining doctors in the regions. This was the case for Dr Hardie, who was forced to return to Perth after completing her placement in 2016 to undertake a four-year program for her chosen specialism of obstetrics. Dr Hardie, who now lives on a Wandering farm with her husband and children, said getting the training and study options right for medical students exposed to regional placements was crucial in keeping them in regional areas in the long term. “The issues we’re having attracting rural doctors come from the city,” Dr Hardie said. “There needs to be a priority for rural doctors to get trained as quickly as possible in the city to get them back out to the country. “The study has shown the earlier we get doctors back out there, the more likely they are to stay rurally.” Narrogin is lucky to have a specialist like Dr Hardie, with the study revealing remote areas have seven times fewer specialists than metropolitan ones, forcing many patients to travel for appointments, creating added emotional and financial stress, while some areas rely on locums. “If you’re relying on locums, these women are relying on someone they have never seen before during the most special time in their life when their baby is being delivered,” Dr Hardie said. The study revealed students were three times more likely to choose regional employment if they received adequate training and support to do so, with 30 per cent of GPs — a speciality with plenty of opportunities for rural training — practising regionally a decade into their careers compared to only 10 per cent of psychiatrists or pediatricians who did not have regional training options. Lead author and researcher from Notre Dame’s Wagga Wagga Clinical School Dr Alexa Seal said the research showed medical training needed to change to meet the critical shortage of workers in regional areas. “Specialist training needs to be expanded to support more rural training opportunities for doctors outside general practice because we know that rural exposure is associated with the likelihood of living rurally in the future,” she said. Regional areas experience higher rates of hospitalisations, deaths, and injuries with limited access to primary health care, according to the Australian Medical Association.