CSU’s dean of the School of Rural Medicine professor Lesley Forster speaks about the need for more doctors.
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00:00 guess what are some of those issues that are facing the rural communities?
00:03 There's so many. Obviously the one that interests us particularly
00:07 is the shortage of medical practitioners and when you compare that with
00:11 the availability of medical resources in the cities,
00:14 we're very disadvantaged in rural and regional areas. So
00:18 that's very important but there's so many others. There's
00:21 you know chronic diseases, there's the incidence of those,
00:26 there's indigenous health, there's drugs and alcohol, there's all sorts of
00:33 things that are really important to our communities.
00:37 Well what I hope to hear is that a rural medical school
00:41 bringing in rural students and teach them in a rural community
00:45 and strengthening their links with the rural communities is going to help us
00:50 produce more rural doctors which is what we're
00:53 very much trying to do. And staffing in the medical profession in the regions is
00:57 obviously a hot topic at the moment as has been
01:00 for years. What are some of those reasons why it's
01:03 you know struggling to find staff in areas like Orange? I think
01:08 we've been very lucky as a medical school. We've got great
01:11 staff and they're local doctors who've agreed to come and teach us, teach for us.
01:18 And even out in the rural areas where the doctors are so
01:22 stretched, they've heard about our program and they've volunteered to be
01:26 part of it which is very exciting and we're very grateful.
01:31 But I think, let's say that the problem is that a lot
01:36 of rural doctors are getting older. You know they're retiring, they
01:40 hoped to retire a long time ago and have stayed out of duty to their community
01:45 and so they're working very hard. And people who aren't from rural areas
01:51 look at that lifestyle and say is that what I want? And it probably
01:56 isn't. And so what we have to do is improve
02:00 the conditions for medical students, for doctors. The more we can,
02:04 the more doctors we can create, the better the lifestyle will be
02:08 because they'll have supports and people to turn to.
02:12 And that's a long-term proposition but that's what we're aiming towards.
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