There is talk around the traps of a budget announcement to address the shortage of doctors in the bush, with suggestions that finally, the Charles Sturt and La Trobe universities proposal for a Murray Darling Medical School might get up.

The problem for Treasury, not to mention existing medical schools, which the hate idea of a new one, is that CSU and LT U are not the only regional unis which aspire to host medical students. Learned readers advise that CQU would love to add medicine to its health courses. CMM asked the uni yesterday and a representative replied; “CQUniversity is committed to working with our health partners and other universities to ensure that the educational pipeline to serve this workforce need is appropriate to the regions. This includes consideration of whether a full medical program could or should be delivered in Queensland locations where it is not currently offered.”  A med school might be a stretch but a teaching hospital with medicine places administered by another uni and providing a destination for CQU health graduates isn’t. The model works down the coast at University of the Sunshine Coast.