Background and objectives: The impact of Australian Government Rural Clinical School (RCS) programs on the geographical maldistribution of the Australian medical workforce is important to report.
Method: This data linkage study compared graduates of the Flinders University medical program who have undergone training in a metropolitan tertiary hospital (Flinders Medical Centre, Adelaide) with those who participated in the Parallel Rural Community Curriculum (PRCC) RCS Program based in rural towns of South Australia between 1999 and 2012. Australian Health Practitioners Authority data were used to determine their location of practice in 2017.
Results: In 2017, more than one-third (36.8%) of PRCC graduates were working in non-metropolitan Modified Monash (MM) 2-7, compared with 20.7% of city campus graduates (odds ratio 2.2; 95% confidence interval: 1.6, 3.0; P <0.001). The difference was even more evident when comparing smaller rural centres in MM 3-7 and MM 5-7.
Discussion: The study demonstrates the strong correlation between the Flinders University RCS Program in South Australia and long-term rural medical workforce outcomes.