Transcript - Townsville Junior Doctor Conference

Transcript: AMA Queensland President, Dr Maria Boulton, ABC Queensland, Mornings with Susan Graham-Ryan, Tuesday 30 May 2023

Subjects: Townsville Junior Doctor Conference, rural workforce shortages

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:   There seems to be increasing pressure with shortages in the numbers of doctors, and it's maybe not a career that everyone is cut out to do. So how do we get more young people to become wonderful doctors and to keep them in the sector? AMA Queensland President Dr Maria Boulton is with me now to discuss a conference coming up in regional Queensland, and that's the goal of it. Good morning.

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Good morning.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:   Firstly, tell me about this upcoming event.

DR MARIA BOULTON:     AMA Queensland will be hosting a Junior Doctor Conference in Townsville on Saturday and Sunday. We will see 130 doctors in training and medical students descend on Townsville, look at the sites, have firsthand experience of Magnetic Island and the region, but also undergo valuable education about future specialties that they might want to train in and also some procedural skills.

Doctors in training are doctors that have finished medical school. They're in that first, second, third, fifth year in the hospital system and perhaps they haven't quite decided what they're going to specialise in, be it general practice, cardiology, surgery. And this gives them a really great opportunity to speak to specialists, find out what they do, see if that's what they want to do, but also be exposed to regions such as Townsville and see whether regional Queensland is the place for them. And as someone who trained in regional Queensland, I would completely recommend it.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    Bit biased, but we love that. So it's to help guide their futures and also, I guess, to have some camaraderie, would that be fair to say?

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Yeah, most definitely. I think being a doctor, being any healthcare worker is a high-stress profession, particularly what we've seen through the last three years. And it just helps you build those networks, but also not among just your colleagues, but also among already established specialists. And it gives you that opportunity to speak to someone who perhaps is already a GP or a cardiologist and ask them, "Hey, what does your day look like? Can you tell me what you like about what you do, what you don't like?" And see whether that's something that you want to train in.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    Now, Dr Boulton, there is a bit of a side trip to Magnetic Island off Townsville that you did mention that the junior doctors will get to take part in. Tell me about what that's all about.

DR MARIA BOULTON:    We're really excited about this. It'll just give people the opportunity to enjoy Magnetic Island, but also we're running this specialty speed dating service where our junior doctors will have the opportunity to speed date different specialists from different backgrounds. So there will be GPs, there will be cardiologists, anaesthetists, and it's like a five-minute meet-and-greet and see whether that's a specialty they would like to follow.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    A chance to sell the different specialties that we're needing people to fill in the future, I guess. Who are some of the guest speakers at this conference this weekend?

DR MARIA BOULTON:    So we've got some Townsville people, the North Queensland Cowboys Medical Officer, Dr Chris Ball. And that's quite exciting because as a doctor, once you have that medical degree, there's so many career paths you could follow, and to be the doctor for a team would be amazing. We also have the 2018 AMA Doctor in Training of the Year, Dr Mikaela Seymour, which is really exciting. We've also got people from the university, so JCU and also the Townsville Hospital and Health Services who are also sponsoring the event.

And there's also going to be people who will discuss wellness. We know that, once again, the medical profession is a high strain, it can be stressful at times. So we'll have some wellness experts there. And we'll also have the Chair of our AMA Queensland Committee of Doctors in Training, Dr Elise Witter, who lives and trains in North Queensland. So she has first firsthand experience of working there, which is really exciting. I'm traveling up, so I'll be there from about Thursday, and so is my Vice President, Dr Nick Yim, who's a regional GP in Hervey Bay. So there's going to be lots of people to meet and greet and we encourage any doctor in training or any medical student there just to come and say hello.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    Oh, are people able to just drop in, are they? Oh, doctors.

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Well, the people who are attending the conference. I think sometimes if you're a medical student or a doctor in training, you may be a little bit shy to talk to a specialist, for example. But what we're saying is this is your opportunity, come and say hello. We're always happy to speak to everyone about the crazy things we've done in our careers and how to get there.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    This is incredible. And so, there's more than 100 doctors in training and medical students joining this. Where are some of the people coming from for the attendance?

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Yeah, they're coming from all over the place, so all through Queensland. We held a similar event in Hervey Bay recently, and what we saw is by bringing people to a regional area to get that firsthand experience, people are more likely to want to train there and work there. And as I said, training in the regions is amazing. I trained in Mackay, Proserpine, and I reckon I learned everything I know from training in regional Queensland, and I spent 10 years there.

And I mean, where else can you live five minutes from the beach and go to work and not spend a lot of time in traffic? Which is what tends to happen in the capital cities. So it's a really great opportunity, and along with the sightseeing there's also going to be some valuable educational sessions as well.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    You've chosen a great time of the year for the event as well because it's just paradise in North Queensland at the moment. Some of us locals might call it cold, but it's quite a beautiful time of year up here in North Queensland.

DR MARIA BOULTON:    It is, and North Queensland is beautiful. I grew up in Central America, so for me it's very cold at the moment as well. But truly, it is spectacular. I had great times in regional Queensland and I've been to Townsville a few times actually, because doing my GP training in Central Queensland and North Queensland, I used to actually have to go to Townsville to sit my exams. But I got to have great times at the restaurants and walking on the beach, and totally recommend it.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    And there's reports that are showing the medical industry does have the biggest worker shortage in Australia. Do you think that promoting how amazing regional places are is important to helping get more doctors into the industry and into regional areas?

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Yeah, absolutely. It's always a little bit difficult to get people into rural and remote areas. And I guess giving them that firsthand experience of what it's like to live there, but also ensuring that their family, a lot of us have families, so the families are supported, that they have accommodation, they have education opportunities, that there's childcare there, all the things that attract healthcare workers to an area.

We are asking though, for the Queensland government and Queensland Health to develop a long-term workforce strategy, because at the moment there's no data indicating exactly how many healthcare workers we need across Queensland. It's really important to have that data so that we know whether or not there's enough recruitment going on, whether there's enough places in medical schools, for example, to ensure that there are enough graduates and enough specialties to cover all areas in Queensland.

We've also seen the Queensland government introduce some incentives to get people out to especially regional, rural and remote areas, which is good. And it is important to be competitive, because other states are offering very good incentives to work there. And I mean, I'm a Queenslander, why would you go anywhere else? But we also need to ensure that those healthcare workers there already in all of Queensland are supported so that they don't move away.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    Is there any, I know we're talking about young doctors here, but is the AMA also calling on barriers faced by foreign doctors in terms of the red tape to get to Australia to work, to be eased as well?

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Yes. Once again, we're competing against the entire of the world, and there's data from the WHO saying that by the year 2032 we'll be short about 15 million healthcare workers in the world. It's really important if people want to move away from wherever they're living, and at the end of the day, it's their decision, that it is made easy for them. And we know that there's a lot more red tape when it comes to coming to Australia than other countries. It is really important that those peoples’ credentials are checked because we do need our workforce to be safe and provide a really high quality service. But we cannot be inundated with red tape. When you compare us to, for example, Canada, it takes a lot longer for a doctor who wants to immigrate to Australia than what it does for a doctor who wants to immigrate to Canada. So, removing those roadblocks.

The other issue with Queensland at the moment is if you want to work across several Hospital and Health Services, say if you're a doctor living in Brisbane and you want to do some locum work in Townsville, you're required to go through another credential process, which is really hard, and it's nonsensical really, you're already in the state. So that's why we're calling for a statewide accreditation process so that you don't have to go through bucket-loads of paperwork every time you want to locum somewhere and give someone a bit of a rest, for example.

That is something that we've seen some movement on. We know that for obstetricians, for example, it becomes a lot easier now to move and work and do locums in different areas, but some restrictions still remain for all the other specialties.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:    Well, thank you very much for sharing all that and giving that insight, AMA Queensland President, Dr Maria Boulton, and enjoy defrosting a little bit while you're up in the tropics.

DR MARIA BOULTON:    Will do. Thank you very much.

SUSAN GRAHAM-RYAN:   Thank you very much. You are on ABC Radio Queensland.