Premium
A case for more year‐long internships outside metropolitan areas?
Author(s) -
Peach Hedley G,
Trembath Maxine,
Fensling Bernie
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2004.tb05829.x
Subject(s) - metropolitan area , internship , medicine , family medicine , geography , medical education , socioeconomics , sociology , pathology
Objective: To determine whether medical graduates who spent their intern year at a non‐metropolitan hospital were more likely to practise outside metropolitan areas on completion of training than were interns in metropolitan hospitals. Design: Retrospective follow‐up of doctors who held year‐long internships at a non‐metropolitan hospital and interns from metropolitan hospitals. Setting: Ballarat Base Hospital (BBH) (Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Area [RRMA] rural zone) and hospitals in Melbourne and Geelong (RRMA metropolitan zone). Participants: 57/63 (90%) Victorian medical graduates completing internships at BBH between 1989 and 1997 and 126/126 (100%) sex‐matched metropolitan interns, chosen at random. Main outcome measures: Practice location in 2002. Results: More BBH interns were practising as GPs outside metropolitan areas (44%) than metropolitan interns (13%) (difference, 31%; 95% CI, 17%–45%). The proportion of interns in specialist practice outside metropolitan areas was small for both groups — zero and 3%, respectively (difference, − 3%; 95% CI, − 6% to 0). None of the specialist training posts held by interns were outside metropolitan areas. Of BBH interns entering general practice, 41% (95% CI, 24%–58%) did so in the local health region. Conclusions: Regional interns are a good source of non‐metropolitan GPs, especially locally. Prospective studies to determine the precise influence of regional internships on eventual practice location, and whether more such posts would lead to more graduates entering non‐metropolitan practice, would be worthwhile.