A recent study showed that only 2.7% of Australian medical graduates would practice in rural areas.
It appears all the money in the town can’t convince city doctors to save a country arm and a leg for any serious amount of time.
But we need them. Boy, do we need them.
If you live away from major metropolitan areas you are 42% more likely to die prematurely of preventable disease. If you live in western New South Wales, you will die, on average, four-and-a-half years earlier than a person living in North Sydney. Successful treatment of cancer diminishes steadily the further you live from major cancer treatment centres. (Source)
The even bigger challenge is that a rural doctor needs to be a jack of all trades. Illnesses in any given town are so diverse that one lonely specialist is a darn site less useful than one proven generalists.
So what should we do? Some say have more rurally-placed medical education institutions others say we should “bond” city students to medical placements via scholarships. The current thinking is that we need to take those lovers of the country and ensure they have more opportunities to become a doctor, on the premise that we don’t need to convince them about the upsides of rural living and surely they will return to us after university.
Until more country kids become doctors, today we need to tailor our recruitment campaigns to the existing doctor-population and the individual’s needs. It’s the town’s prerogative to ensure the GP suits the town and the town suits the GP, in the interests of keeping them around and keeping the townsfolk healthy and happy. And to ensure that dreaded time lapse, where one doctor leaves and the next one hasn’t arrived yet (or even been identified) and local events can’t be run and local people can’t be cared for, ceases occurring.
Instead of offering a one-size fits all fiscal package, shouldn’t we find out what they really want and market the town accordingly and take responsibility for ensuring they get what they want from the relocation. So, what do GPs want and how are other country towns recruiting them.
A rural doctors’ conference last week revealed lifestyle and adventure trumped money. (Source) Franca Leigh, a rural recruitment consultant, said that doctors who have families are often hesitant about uprooting children and finding good schools. So catering for this and integrating them into school communities is a critical part of recruitment.
“Older doctors” who want adventure and could otherwise be grey nomads are attracted to the philosophy of change being as good as a holiday. They need to be convinced that there are spectacular things to do and see.
Junior doctors who want a different skillset and career opportunity need to be convinced that they won’t be socially isolated as well as geographically.
Young doctor Clare Huppatz shared her fear with the press when she moved from Sydney to far north Queensland. “The thing I hesitate about and I’ve really troubled over is, how am I going to meet a guy?” (Source)
If we’re serious about keeping “Clare”, we’d all become her personal RSVP.com and ensure she was given every opportunity to meet a local, date a local, wed a local and start another local family (all the while maintaining the medical practice, of course).
I remember growing up in one country town in the central west where the local doctor was an institution in the town. She was everyone’s doctor and everyone’s friend. Conversely, while working further west after university, I watched a town face the regular crisis of the departing doctor. It was painfully cyclical. It appeared no-one really clicked with a town we all loved living in. Perhaps we didn’t know what they really wanted beyond the salary but I know that placing 'catch and keep' with our perfect medical match is everyone’s job.
