A national workforce plan based solely on supply projections will fail to fix Australia’s medical training crisis, GP registrars have warned, as new data shows the transition rate from junior doctor to specialist training is set to collapse.
The response followed the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing’s recently released whole of medical workforce compendium report, which found all jurisdictions would face a medical workforce imbalance – namely, an oversupply of hospital prevocational doctors and a shortfall of specialists.
A shortage of more than 12,800 full-time equivalent (FTE) GP and non-specialist doctors was expected by 2048.
While General Practice Registrars Australia endorsed the need for a national health workforce plan, the association said looking beyond the raw numbers and considering the common denominators in distribution and retention was equally critical.
“Supply and demand data modelling is a critical tool, but what attracts future generations to
choose community-based placements in the first place is entirely missing from these current
debates,” a GPRA spokesperson told The Medical Republic.
The GPRA also warned GPs shouldn’t be placed simply as a box-ticking exercise – especially if these placements were unsafe, isolated or unsupported.
Resolving Australia’s systemic healthcare challenges would require far more than increasing training placement numbers alone, said the GPRA.
“True sustainability requires evidence-based, patient-focused service systems, enabling doctors to work at the top of their clinical scope, and critically, contemporary workplace conditions and psychological safety at work,” said the GPRA spokesperson.
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Last year, the Albanese Government announced it would add 100 Commonwealth supported places (CSPs) annually for medical students at 10 universities, focusing on primary care training to address GP shortages in underserved rural and suburban areas.
Australian Medical Students Association president Seniru Mudannayake said the report confirms medical students have been misled into believing they can secure stable career progression.
“The reality is the [average annual] transition rate from junior [hospital prevocational] doctor to accredited registrar is going to decline, from just 36% in 2024 to 15% by 2048,” he said.
While the government has committed to bolster CSPs, Mr Mudannayake said more funding was necessary for public specialist outpatient services.
Mr Mudannayake told TMR it was distressing to see unaccredited registrars and prevocational doctors unable to secure a training program and “suffering immensely”, evident in overwork, unpaid overtime, workplace mistreatment, and a lack of career progression.
He urged the federal government to include medical students in the Commonwealth Prac Payment scheme.
He also warned the combination of fiercer competition for training places, cost-of-living pressures, and a 2000-hour clinical requirement would disproportionately shut out doctors from disadvantaged backgrounds.
“It’s horrifying to see the two-tier system so entrenched in medical school that’s meant to create the workforce for universal health,” he said.
Mr Mudannayake said the medical training pipeline bottleneck will “continue to push down medical students from low socioeconomic, rural, and Indigenous backgrounds” – those he said would be more likely to work in underserved communities.
In 2023, First Nations people constituted just 0.6% of the medical practitioner workforce.
The post Fixing the numbers won’t fix the pipeline, GPRA warns appeared first on Medical Republic.
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