The future of a program aimed at introducing medical students to working in the country is in doubt because its federal funding could be cut.
The John Flynn Placement Program links students with regional doctors to encourage them to work in the bush.
A spokesman for the Health Minister said the program would be funded beyond this year but declined to say for how long or if the funding would be reduced.
Students have been told placements for next year cannot be confirmed because of the funding uncertainty.
The Rural Doctors Association president, Dennis Pashen, said the program had been very effective.
“The students have valued it enormously and the doctors that have been out there for many years that have mentored these students see this as their future retirement plan pretty much,” he said.
“These are the guys that are coming out to replace them in the future.”
He said the program needed to continue.
“The end result could be we’ll lose that opportunity to redirect students from metropolitan Australian into rural Australia and that would be a very big tragedy because a lot of the good programs that are already up and running that are already affected could end up being less effective as a result of the loss of these sorts of programs,” he said.