Western Sydney U joins up to work on a curriculum

The two universities announced the partnership yesterday, which includes CDU existing partner, the Menzies School of Health Research.

“This is a critical step to enable the teaching of a medical program in the Territory, for the Territory,” CDU states.

It progresses a plan VC Scott Bowman announced in October 2021, to have a med school operating by 2023, with a first in-take of 40 students, to meet the NT’s need for interns (CMM October 5 2021, February 9 2022).

Since then the CDU has gone about assembling alliances and establishing the intellectual infrastructure a new med school needs – making it ever-harder for opponents of more competition for Commonwealth funded med student places to argue the university is not ready.

And if, or more likely when,  it comes to politics, Professor Bowman is ready for that as well.

““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,” he says (CMM March 31 2022).