RACGP President Dr Bastian Seidel said the new hubs and university departments are being funded through the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program and will provide much needed support for clinical training across regional Australia.
"This $54.4 million investment in clinical training will create even more high quality rural health and medical placements for students across Australia. It will also provide people living in rural communities with more GPs, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals," Dr Seidel said.
The new university departments will support clinical placements for nursing, midwifery, dental or allied health students. The new training hubs will play a critical role in the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline for Medicine.
In 2013, the RACGP was commissioned by the Australian Government to develop national policy options for connecting and enabling an integrated rural training pathway for medical practitioners.
The RACGP's Final report: new approaches to integrated rural training for medical practitioners helped shape the Australian Government's Integrated Rural Training Pipeline for Medicine and recommended greater investment in integrated rural training hubs.
"A key to the success of each training hub will be its partnerships at the local level including its partnership with RACGP Rural and the integration of its teaching resources with the faculty's teaching resources", Dr Seidel said.
"We're greatly looking forward to supporting the hubs by providing access to our vast member base on the ground, our established GP-led multidisciplinary teaching teams and expertise on governance committees.
"Most of all we'd like to bring a national perspective to help build networks between the hubs and support their long-term regional workforce goals."
For more information see the RACGP's Position statement on integrated rural training hubs.
