Increasing by 300 the number of graduate doctors trained by the two existing medical schools will help address the rural doctor shortage, says the University of Otago Medical School’s Acting Dean, Professor Tim Wilkinson.
The country’s two existing medical schools say they have capacity to train 889 students – 300 more than currently – within four years or so. This would be sooner that could be managed by establishing the third medical school that is being considered for Waikato University, and would not need the capital investment.
All it needs is government funding.
The coalition agreement commits the government to a cost benefit analysis of establishing a third medical school at Waikato.
The university proposes training existing graduates but with a focus on specialist rural doctors. It claims it can take a first intake of 120 students in 2027.
A recently released PwC NZ report looking at the state of medical education for the universities of Otago and Auckland shows they can immediately increase student numbers and could do more cost effectively than establishing a new school.
This year’s budget provided funding for an additional 25 student places split between Otago and Auckland next year, but the report says they could train a further 100 in 2026, increasing the total annual intake for doctor training from the current level of 589 to 714.
From 2027 onwards, capacity could then be increased incrementally up to a combined intake of 889 across the two universities.
“This is 300 more than the current intake of 589 annually,” the report says.
Wilkinson said increasing the total number of medical students means more will have an interest in working in rural medicine.
Half of medical students are undecided on their eventual career when they graduate but Wilkinson said many become more receptive to working in general practice than at the start of their medical training, which could benefit the rural health workforce.
It costs about $60,000 a year to train a medical student, of which about $16,000 comes from student fees.
Wilkinson said both medical schools have teaching facilities and regional placements in regional and rural programmes in more than 100 different cities, towns and centres.
The Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland, Professor Warwick Bagg, said a shortage of placements in year-long immersion training programmes is a barrier to training regardless of whether there is a new medical school.
The programmes are expensive, students require a level of supervision and need facilities such as consulting rooms, and any increase in student numbers requires funding and capacity for such placements.
“The country’s biggest problem is not about education facilities.
“It is about funding more students to study medicine and ensuring sufficient clinical placements around the country for them to learn on the job,” said Bagg.
Both Auckland and Otago universities are ready to step up and begin training extra doctors.
“We are able to leverage existing resources, capability and facilities while deploying our experience and expertise to rapidly increase the intake of trainee doctors.”
Bagg said another solution to the doctor shortage is to retain those who are educated in NZ. A third of students trained here moved overseas in the past 10 years.
Allison Bennett, the Ministry of Health’s manager for health system settings, said the report will be considered during compilation of the business case and cost benefit analysis on a third medical school.
Bennett said the government’s latest 100-day plan signals that the Cabinet will consider the business case and cost-benefit analysis for the proposed medical school.
