AMA Federal Council Calls on Government to Dump Policy on Full Fee Paying Medical Places

The AMA Federal Council represents all the States and Territories, general practitioners, all medical specialties, doctors in training, and medical students.

AMA President, Dr Mukesh Haikerwal, said today the Council felt strongly and unanimously that the Government's policy was a catalyst for higher university fees that were putting a medical career further out of reach of many of our brightest students.

"Wealth should not be a prerequisite for getting into medical school," Dr Haikerwal said.

"A medical school place should be earned through achieving the necessary tertiary entry level and having the ambition and ability to acquire highly specialised knowledge and skills, not the ability to pay exorbitant fees.

"Too many smart kids will miss out under this system."

Dr Haikerwal said the AMA Federal Council has serious concerns about the double whammy of high fees and inadequate provision for clinical training capacity for those students already in the system.

"While the AMA supports a planned, well-resourced roll-out of increased medical school places, the latest full fee paying places announced by the Government will place enormous strains on our internationally recognised medical education system," Dr Haikerwal said.

"We must get clinical training resources up to the required level to ensure this next generation of doctors will have sound skills and knowledge acquired in the Australian system.

"This is an enormous safety and quality issue for the Australian health system.

"While the AMA would prefer to see all medical school places being HECS funded, an important first step would be to scrap the February decision to increase the cap on full fee paying places to 25 per cent.

"Given that the Federal Government and the State and Territory Governments have only committed themselves to ensuring that all HECS funded medical school students can access clinical training in hospitals and intern jobs once they have finished their degrees, the cap must be dropped before a flood of full fee students find themselves in limbo with no access to clinical training.

"Medicine now tops the list of the most expensive full fee paying courses at university - with a University of NSW combined Medicine/Arts degree now costing $237,000 - so there is the legitimate concern that many full fee paying students will be wasting their money anyway.

"If medical graduates are unable to secure an intern place and complete an intern year, they won't be able to fulfil Medical Board requirements to gain full registration and will not be able to work as doctors.

"With full fee medical degrees now costing about the same as a house mortgage, these students face the prospect of graduating from medical school with a degree that will be about as useful as a mortgage without a house.

"This higher number of full fee places will do nothing to get young doctors to where they are needed most, especially regional Australia.

"In fact, it will probably have the opposite effect.

"The AMA calls on all levels of Government to do 'their bit' and, as a matter of urgency, cut the number of full fee paying places and increase the clinical training capacity in our teaching hospitals.

"Each player - the universities, the hospitals, and the State and Federal Governments - has a vital role to ensure comprehensive training for the next generation of Australian doctors."

Background:

Over the last few years, the Government has created around 1900 extra first year medical school places.

In February 2006, the Prime Minister announced that the cap on domestic full fee paying places would be lifted from 10 per cent to 25 per cent of total medical school enrolments.

Currently, 300 medical students sign up for full fee paying places each year - and this figure will potentially rise to around 700 students a year.

In April 2006, the Government announced 400 HECS funded places, which was followed by an announcement of a further 205 HECS funded places at the July COAG meeting.