Hundreds of medical graduates start their year-long internships in hospitals across New South Wales, and in Tamworth the push is on to ensure they complete all of their training in the town’s newly redeveloped hospital.
More than a dozen medical graduates will complete their internship at Tamworth Hospital this year.
The Hospital’s General Manager, Catherine Death, said a big part of keeping the interns in Tamworth long-term was making sure all training could happen locally.
“We have a state-of-the-art hospital now, a brand new hospital, so that gives interns access to state-of-the-art technology, and access to the consultants,” she said.
“We’re hoping with that support over the next two years they will continue to consolidate into their specialties here.
She said there were also opportunities to continue training to the next level.
“Up to the next level, the registrar level, we have training programs and hopefully they will come onto those training programs and become accredited in their specialisation.”
Retention of doctors and specialists is an issue affecting many regional areas across New South Wales.
In the past, doctors training in some specialty areas have been required to complete training in bigger hospitals but Ms Death said there were negotiations underway to allow all training to happen in Tamworth.
“What we’re working through at the moment is working with the colleges and Hunter New England Area Health to look at what accredited programs we do run,” Ms Death said.
“There are a number that we do run. Obviously the Specialisation of Paediatrics we still need to do some more work with. But hopefully now with a new environment here and with these interns coming through, we’ll be able to continue to negotiate with Hunter New England Area Health and with the colleges about what we can provide moving forward.
“What we’re looking at is working with the Health Education and Training Institute, which is the training body for the Ministry of Health, and working with Hunter New England Area Health to look at what requirements we need to make the environment appropriate.
“Certainly a lot of work has been done over the last period of time with some of the other specialisations that we do have but it is a constant process of working through the requirements.”
Ms Death said technological developments were helping.
“Telehealth and the utilisation of the different camera technologies is certainly the way forward,” she said.
“In this hospital a lot of time and money has been put into building both telehealth and telemedicine.”
Interns keen to stay in regions
Intern Sally Sinclair grew up in Tamworth and said while she was keen to give back to the community she grew up in, there were benefits to training in a different setting.
“I want to be able to give my patients the best care and I feel to do that I should experience a really broad sense of teaching styles and be examined by a lot different people to really develop my skills,” she said.
“If I had the option I would probably go and travel and learn but then I would love to come back.”
Mitchell Bath said given the right opportunity he would stay on at Tamworth Hospital.
“As a local boy I think I’ve come to appreciate living in the country,” he said.
“I’ve had six years in Sydney and I was actually excited to move home so I certainly think if I can find the right training positions I’d be keen to stay in the country.”