July 29th, 2022Medical Training opportunities in North Western Victoria
Medical students and doctors seeking rural and regional study and work are now supported to see how they can live, work and train rurally to achieve their dream career.
A website that maps the major specialty pathways and shows training places locally across regional NSW, VIC, TAS and South East SA has launched additional fact sheets. The site acts as a one-stop shop, showing users their future training requirements and to identify the local health services offering them.
The Regional Medical Training (RMT) website regionalmedicaltraining.com.au is the result of a collaboration of 11 Universities with Rural Clinical Schools and Regional Training Hubs in the regions. It is a shared initiative to support local graduates to stay rural, funded by the Federal Department of Health’s Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program.
Chair of the RMT Working Group, and Director of Monash University’s North West Victorian Regional Training Hub, Associate Professor Janelle Brennan says, “With 24 medical specialty pathways and accredited placements mapped, the website increases its capacity as a one-stop shop for medical students and trainees investigating career and training study options in south east regional Australia.”
“The new additions to the website are updated General Practice and Rural Generalist fact sheets, with Cardiology, Respiratory Medicine and Nephrology newly joining 21 other medical training pathways found across regional Tasmania, Victoria and NSW, as well as the limestone coast region of South Australia. This complements the extensive resources already included on the site,” Associate Professor Brennan continued.
Regional Medical Training’s unique search portal maps out regional training futures that can be searched by either location or specialty. If you’re particularly keen to live in a specific regional location you can search by region or, alternatively, if you are focused on pursuing a particular medical specialty you can enter it into the map engine and all of the regional towns and cities where you can train are documented.
This is a big boost for visibility of rural training opportunities and works to attract doctors to the regions.
Here in North West Victoria there are multiple specialty pathways that graduating medical students and local trainees can pursue at a local level.
Associate Professor Hieu Pham, Deputy Director of North West Victorian Regional Training Hub and Consultant Psychiatrist at Mildura Base Public Hospital is excited by the increasing training opportunities that Regional Medical Training showcases to students and trainees in wishing to work and live within the North West Victoria region.
“Here in Mildura, students and trainees are able to access positions in pathways as diverse as emergency medicine, paediatrics, psychiatry and surgery. The fact that medical students and trainees anywhere in the world can search a map and see what we offer here in town is amazing. And to see the Cardiology pathway information now go live is a bonus,” said Associate Professor Pham.
Dr Nate Dalton who is interning at Bendigo Health said he appreciates how valuable this website is for his colleagues and fellow medical peers. The visual map of the specialty pathways is a big plus, as is the trove of stories showcasing current regional medical trainees and students pursuing their careers in the regions.
“I’m still considering my options in terms of which discipline I’d like to specialise in. It’s so good to be able to search the website and have a line of sight when it comes to the potential pathways forward. It’s a really concise overview of the diverse range of speciality placements we have access to here in Bendigo and in regional areas. I think this resource is great for anyone looking to broaden their consideration of training pathways and locations, because everything is in one place,” said Dr Dalton.
On top of the current 24 specialty training pathways currently showcased on the website, more will be added over the coming months, including Urology and Addiction Medicine.
