UNE’s innovative Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship program (LIC) is a key piece to solving the rural healthcare crisis puzzle.
The pilot program, which was launched last year as part of a strategy to boost the regional health workforce, comes at a time where regional and rural areas are facing critical GP shortages across Australia.
It’s designed to attract senior medical students to rural generalist practice and have them work as apprentice GPs in small towns for one semester (19 weeks).
“We’re targeting people who have ambition to be rural GPs,” says UNE Senior Lecturer, Dr Maree Puxty, the academic coordinator of the program.
“We know from the research that if you want to increase the number of rural general practitioners then you need to attract students who have grown up in the country, and make it attractive for them to train in a rural centre.
LIC Academic Coordinator, Dr Maree Puxty.
“In effect, we’re trying to grow our own regional GPs.”
The program provides opportunity for students to immerse themselves within rural communities and see the various ways healthcare can be delivered in low-resource settings across large geographical areas.
Peter Curtis, one of this year’s participating apprentice GPs, says the LIC interested him as a regional resident himself. “I originally hail from Wagga Wagga, and the opportunity to spend an extended period in a community desperately short on doctors seemed the best way to learn more about rural healthcare. It was the perfect way to round out a medical degree that started in Armidale and has taken me to Taree, Gosford and now Inverell.”
Another student in the program, James Gomersall, says the experience gained from working in regional areas within the LIC places them well-above their peers.
“Our role in the LIC is both as normal students on placement and an extra hand on deck,” James says. “Here I get the ability to hone my clinical reasoning and procedural skills. The exposure that we get in this rural setting is unrivalled in larger centres, as other medical students and junior medical staff would be completing the work we are doing here.
The exposure that we get in this rural setting is unrivalled in larger centres, as other medical students and junior medical staff would be completing the work we are doing here.
“Per hour I have never practised so much medicine in my life, which will put me in good stead for the internship as a junior medical officer next year. I also love getting to know members of the community, including both staff and patients. Everyone is so kind and hospitable.”
Per hour I have never practised so much medicine in my life, which will put me in good stead for the internship as a junior medical officer next year.
Students and future GPs Peter Curtis and James Gomersall.
And it’s safe to say that the program’s goal of attracting new GPs to the country seems to be working. Both current LIC apprentice GPs have a desire to work regionally after their studies.
“I think the LIC has reinforced my inclination to practice medicine rurally,” Peter says. “You get to see the way rural practice can be as well as the great need for doctors of every description in the country.”
I think the LIC has reinforced my inclination to practice medicine rurally.
James says, “I have always wanted to live and work in rural and regional areas, so the LIC helps take me in that direction. Especially when learning the unique systems and ways of practising medicine that the under-resourced country has.”
The LIC is partially funded by the Betty Fyffe Bequest, an endowment made by Tamworth nurse, Elizabeth Cahill Fyffe. Betty’s life-long legacy of caring continues through improving rural and regional healthcare thanks to her generosity.
LIC students also receive the Elizabeth Cahill Fyffe scholarship, which helps 50 rural or regional students enrolled in our Joint Medical Program to follow their dreams and potentially bolster the future rural medical workforce.
