A decade of Australian Rural Clinical School graduates - where are they and why?

Abstract

The study highlighted what is obvious but often overlooked in recruitment strategies for medical students and prevocational doctors: the significance of the inevitable life decisions that frequently take precedence over career intentions. A decade on there is strong endorsement for the positive influence that rural undergraduate clinical training has on promoting rural career intentions. However the fulfilment of these intentions is at risk when competing with concurrent personal/life choices and while based in an urban training environment. Provision of a continuum of postgraduate training opportunities in rural and regional settings that include a rural focus for specialties such as surgery, anaesthetics and obstetrics could: (1) satisfy speciality training requirements; (2) focus life decisions in a rural environment; and (3) keep rural career intentions viable and congruent with other life goals. The overriding message is: the longer the exposure to training in the rural context, the greater the impact on interest in future rural practice and, particularly, the greater the likelihood that important life decisions will also be made in the rural context.