Medical Student Intake

18 May 2007

The School of Rural Health will welcome its next group of year 3 medical students on Monday 21st May 2007. Thirteen students will commence their placements at the Orange campus and fourteen students will commence placements at the Dubbo campus.

In 2007 a total of fifty two students will pass through the Dubbo campus and fifty eight students will pass through the Orange campus. This is an extraordinary achievement for the School of Rural Health. The students are spending longer periods of time in the cities of Dubbo and Orange and are experiencing what it is like to be part of a rural community.

25% of the students enrolled in the Graduate Medical program of The University of Sydney will spend 50% of their clinical training years at the School of Rural Health.

The School of Rural Health covers an enormous one-third of NSW from Broken Hill to Lithgow and from Bourke to Parkes.

In order to attract more doctors to rural areas, the Federal Government, via its regional health strategy, implemented a program to establish Rural Clinical Schools in 2000. Designed to give medical students a taste of rural life and medicine, nine Australian universities with Faculties of Medicine received funding to set up Rural Clinical Schools. The University of Sydney set up their Rural Clinical School as the School of Rural Health primarily based in Dubbo, and Orange.