Medicine and Dentistry dean Richard Murray told the Cairns Post all about it Saturday

With 80 more places the university could expand the full medicine programme to Cairns and Mackay campuses.

This appears in-line with the university’s submission to a Senate committee inquiry into the supply of GPs outside cities.

“The single most important priority in medical workforce reform is to build a substantial pipeline of domestic medical graduates who willingly pursue remote and regional careers in general practice and rural generalist medicine as well as regional consultant practice,” JCU states.

The university also argues, that medical students from rural, regional and remote communities stay in them and they should receive a “primary care focussed curriculum delivered largely in the community in regional, rural and remote areas, and then to appropriate targeted regionally and rurally located postgraduate training pathways.”

The time is right for JCU to be pitching for more places, what with the 2022 election campaign already on in Queensland.

Last week Labor’s Jim Chalmers announced $50m for a new CQU campus in Cairns, which may mean the coalition will be looking for an education announcement of its own there. Especially one that is relatively low cost – Cairns, and Mackay, are both in safe-ish coalition seats.