MedConnect | Shaping the future of rural health
Explore how community-led initiatives can create an impact to improve health in remote regions.
Rural communities play a central role in building capacity to improve health outcomes for groups encountering health challenges in regional Australia. Rural and remote areas cope with issues around funding, attracting and retaining medical professionals, particularly general practitioners (GPs), ensuring adequate healthcare access within rural and remote communities and facilitating educational pathways for students interested in studying rural healthcare across diverse, widely spread areas.
Until recently aspiring doctors could not study for a full medical degree in rural NSW, but now UNSW offers end-to-end medical training at two regional locations and clinical training at three others. We have an increasing body of evidence that students who study medicine for six years in a rural area, are much more likely to become long-term rural practitioners. This is just one of the proactive initiatives emerging within regional communities that demonstrate a clear focus on wanting to implement hopeful and systematic solutions in support of rural health.
In a discussion led by UNSW Medicine & Health Dean, Professor Cheryl Jones, experts from across the regional health landscape will analyse effective strategies, identify areas for improvement in the sector, explore how to enhance community support, and how community-led initiatives can create impact to improve health in remote regions.
Meet the panel: view our speaker biographies here.
Dr Barbara Cameron MBBS FACRRM, general practitioner in Gundagai, UNSW graduate, lecturer, and clinical skills coordinator for the UNSW Rural Clinical School, Wagga Wagga
Professor Tara Mackenzie, consultant respiratory physician at Riverina Respiratory & Sleep Centre, and Associate Dean & Head of School of Clinical Medicine (Rural) at UNSW Medicine & Health
Karen Murray, senior careers adviser, Kildare Catholic College, Wagga Wagga
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This event will be streamed via the UNSW YouTube channel. A link to watch the livestream will be sent ahead of the event.
Can't tune in to the event? Register to receive the on-demand recording.