Medical students say plans for another school in New South Wales and Victoria are ill-conceived because there are not enough training opportunities for graduates.
Charles Sturt University and La Trobe University want to set up the Murray Darling Medical School with campuses in Orange, Wagga Wagga and Ballarat.
The proposal is gathering support from federal MPs including the Minister for Rural Health Fiona Nash, as a way of addressing a doctors shortage in regional areas.
But James Lawler from the Australian Medical Students’ Association said more investment was needed to provide internships and speciality training places.
“There wasn’t really forward planning put in place to provide for the training positions that are required for medical students who’ve started their degree to progress all the way through their training, including internship positions and specialist training,” Mr Lawler said.
The AMSA said the school would exacerbate a “bottleneck” of graduates trying to access internships in hospitals.
“I fail to see how there could be more capacity for students,” Mr Lawler said.
“At worst you’d be adding a whole bunch more students to what’s already a fairly busy clinical site for students and at best you wouldn’t increase the student numbers overall but you’d shift all those students with rural clinical skills back to the city.”
The Federal Government is being urged to direct more investment to provide more training places and internships to cope with the rising number of graduates.