ACRRM 4th Scientific Forum Conference Papers

The Indian Ocean Territories of Australia do not immediately come to mind as important examples of the impact of the lack of workforce and declining services for remote Australians. This novel paper looks at the impact the lack of obstetric services has had on the Christmas and Coco Islands over the last decade. In doing so, Roach et al. provide an article that may be relevant to many other remote communities on mainland Australia.

94% of rural doctors recognise that the provision of and access to continuing medical education in rural areas is a vital factor in the retention of rural doctors and helps with feelings of professional isolation. Dr Colin White and colleagues present new research in their paper.

The current medical workforce in Australian rural emergency departments is a mixture of specialists, vocationally registered GPs, overseas trained doctors and doctors with no particular qualification. This study provides a snapshot of the current workforce. It also presents a range of opinions about options for developing rural emergency doctors in Australia.

In this article Somers et al. try to quantify what makes first year medical students "rural origin" and thus more likely in their future medical careers to work in rural areas. The data presented in this article are even more important to ensure that the outcome of the Australian Government's decision to invest by doubling the number medical student places leads to rural communities having the medical workforce they need in the future.