CDU is going flat out to the finish of the race for new places in med schools

There are said to be 80 up for allocation by the Commonwealth and CDU wants 40 of them for its proposed medicine course. Foundation dean of medicine Diane Stephens was in the NT News Friday making the case to an audience that is surely already convinced.

VC Scott Bowman has been working on what’s needed to make a med school, pretty much since he arrived at CDU in 2021. He already had people and plans in place when he made his case for a school in a Flinders U speech that October, (full marks for frankness, Flinders has long taught medicine in the NT (CMM October 5 2021).

And over the following years health-courses have been created, a partnership with the Menzies School of Medical Research in Darwin established and Western Sydney U’s med school enlisted to develop a curriculum (CMM August 9 2022).

But while he has the medical mallards in a row, Professor Bowman has always had plenty of policy in his pitch, “we know that one of the most significant barriers to providing quality health care services, especially in regional and remote areas, is attracting and retaining a well-qualified health workforce. Experience demonstrates this is best done by training the health workers locally,” he told CMM Friday.

Plus politics– “it’s quite strange and remarkable that the NT, which is six times the size of the UK and has unique and pressing medical challenges, is the only state or territory with no Commonwealth-funded medical places in the country.” (CMM August 9 2022).