Australian Medical Association Limited
ABN 37 008 426 793
42 Macquarie Street, Barton ACT 2600: PO Box 6090, Kingston ACT 2604
Telephone: (02) 6270 5400 Facsimile (02) 6270 5499
MEDICAL STUDENT TRAINING FUNDING WELCOME AND MUST
BE SUPPORTED BY GRADUATE TRAINING PLACES
AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce, said that the AMA welcomes additional funding for
medical student training announced by the Government today.
Dr Pesce said the funding would only deliver the desired future medical workforce results if it
were complemented with comprehensive workforce planning arrangements and extra training
places for medical graduates once they have finished their university courses.
“Long term planning is needed for the medical workforce training required for students
graduating from medical school to ensure that they have a seamless journey on their way to
becoming fully trained doctors,” Dr Pesce said.
“Today’s announcement addresses the start of the training process for the larger numbers of
medical students, and we now need to see cooperation between governments to guarantee
intern, prevocational, vocational training for these students after they graduate.
“There was broad consensus at the AMA’s recent Medical Training Summit for a range of
concrete strategies that must be put in place to address these needs. With the increasing
number of medical students coming through our university system, these post-university
training needs are more acute than ever.
“The Government indicated today that Health Workforce Australia (HWA) would undertake a
comprehensive set of profession and specialty specific training plans for graduating nurses and
medical officers, and would work on the issue of clinical placements for overseas students.
“The AMA will offer its support and advice to HWA for this work,” Dr Pesce said.
Dr Pesce said the AMA would be calling on all governments and HWA to incorporate the
recommendations of the AMA Summit into their future medical workforce planning. The
specific AMA Summit recommendations related to additional roles and responsibilities for
HWA for postgraduate medical training are:
HWA to establish a Medical Workforce Planning Advisory Committee to complete an
analysis of community demand for medical services and associated medical workforce
requirements, medical school intakes and graduate numbers, demand for international
medical graduates and need for training places by the end of 2011;
By the end of 2012, the Australian Health Ministers’ Conference (AHMC) should adopt
recommendations from the HWA studies (above), including a guarantee to provide the
number of prevocational and vocational training places recommended to 2020; and
The Commonwealth’s 60 per cent funding for teaching should be conditional on States
and Territories funding and delivering prevocational and vocational places as
recommended by HWA and agreed by the AHMC.
The full AMA Summit Joint Statement is on the AMA website at www.ama.com.au
13 October 2010
CONTACT:
John Flannery
02 6270 5477 / 0419 494 761
NEWS 
