Education Minister Flags Boost to Clinical Training for Medical Students
AMA Vice President, Dr Choong-Siew Yong, said today that the AMA is encouraged by reports that the Education Minister, Julie Bishop, is considering boosting funding for clinical training.
The Australian newspaper reports that, in response to approaches from medical groups, including the AMA, the Minister recognises that growing medical school intakes 'are not being matched by resources to provide the necessary hands-on experience for students'.
Dr Yong said the Minister's reported intention to review university funding for clinical training is good news for a medical training system that faces bottlenecks over coming years unless there is a significant increase in clinical teachers and resources.
"Any review not only needs to look at money for clinical placements, but also how much money for medical students the universities are transferring to their general administration budgets," Dr Yong said.
"Some universities are reported to be taking up to 50 per cent of the money provided by the Commonwealth to support medical students and siphoning it off into general administration.
"The universities must stop using medicine as a cash cow and instead invest money for medical schools into better facilities that will attract more clinicians into teaching.
"The Commonwealth contributes just over $1000 per medical student to support their clinical placement in teaching hospitals, but this barely covers the cost of basic facilities for students while they are in the hospitals.
"The AMA would welcome moves to increase this funding to make sure that hospitals can put more effort into providing students with quality teaching.
"Any funding changes must also encourage greater transparency about where the money goes.
"Medical schools should publicly account for the money they receive for medical students, and the hospitals must be discouraged from shifting specific medical training funding into general funds," Dr Yong said.
The AMA is working to ensure that the next round of Australian Health Care Agreements include tied funding to the States and Territories that requires them to make sure they provide enough intern and specialist training places to match the dramatic increase in medical school numbers - which will top 3200 new medical school students each year by 2012.