Faculties of Health Deans Meet in Dubbo

25 January 2008

The University of Sydney's School of Rural Health will welcome its next group of year 3 medical students on Tuesday 29 January 2008. Thirteen students will commence their placements at the Orange campus and sixteen students will commence placements at the Dubbo campus.

In 2008 a total of fifty two students will pass through the Dubbo campus and fifty one students will pass through the Orange cmapus. This is an extraordinary achievement for the School of Rural Health. the studenst are spending at least one clinical year in the cities of Dubbo and Orange and are experiencing what it is like to be part of a rural community.

The School of Rural Health covers an enormous area of NSW from Broken Hill to Bathurst 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.