Intern places: investment in future medical workforce being wasted

The National Medical Intern Data Management Working Group has advised that up to 240 Australian graduates may not be offered a state or territory intern position in 2015. In response, the AMA has said that the hard-fought investment in Australia’s future medical workforce is being wasted as governments fail to provide sufficient intern places for Australian medical graduates.
 
AMA Vice President, Dr Stephen Parnis, said that it is vital that all Australian governments cooperate to ensure that the entire medical training pipeline is resourced to meet Australia’s health needs. He said it is a shameful waste of a vital resource if there are hundreds of medical graduates unable to become doctors because of short-sighted governments.

The AMA believes that planning for sufficient intern places must be part of the forthcoming review of medical intern training proposed by the Standing Council on Health earlier this year. Dr Parnis said that the need for properly coordinated medical training planning does not stop at the intern level as these interns will later need to find resident medical officer positions, and then they will be looking at vocational training opportunities in following years.