Beware the medical training bottleneck
The AMA welcomes the review article by Assoc Prof Catherine Joyce in the Healthcare Workforce Supplement published today online by the Medical Journal of Australia (MJA).
AMA President, Dr Steve Hambleton, said the article highlights the looming medical training bottlenecks that will see many medical graduates struggle to find an intern place next year and confront further obstacles as they progress to seek to achieve full specialist qualification.
Nationally, there will be 3512 graduates at the end of this year. There were 2723 intern places across the country in 2011 and, even with some growth, current projections estimate that Australia will still be short around 370 intern places next year for local and domestic graduates.
Dr Hambleton said that the recent Health Workforce 2025 report concluded that Australia needs to keep not only its domestic graduates, but also international graduates, if we are to ensure that the medical workforce can keep up with future community need.
“The same report identified that there is a looming shortage of training places for medical graduates throughout the training pipeline,” Dr Hambleton said.
In 2016, there will be 3867 doctors who require a first year advanced specialist training place, whereas the most recent data show that there are currently only 2817 positions available. Even factoring some growth in these places, Health Workforce 2025 is still projecting a shortage of 451 training positions.
“The Austalian Health Ministers Advisory Conference says it is working to address the shortage of intern places,” Dr Hambleton said.
“And the AMA understands that Health Workforce Australia is also working on plans to address the critical shortage in training positions, and that these plans will go to Health Ministers towards the end of the year.
“The AMA was advised recently by the Minister that the Commonwealth would continue to work closely with jurisdictions to ensure that appropriate policies are in place to meet the increased demand for intern places.
“The Government recognises the benefits of Australian-trained medical graduates remaining in Australia to work as medical practitioners and the importance of keeping these doctors here as part of the future medical workforce.
“The AMA believes this requires high level COAG commitments to ensure that the funding and resources required to address these bottlenecks in the medical training pipeline are delivered so that patients can get access to the medical services they need.”
23 July 2012
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