Years of fruitless attempts to lure skilled doctors from outside of the region could be over with a training overhaul set to help steer the healthcare system away from "disaster".
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Junior doctors now have access to a catalogue of specialist pathways offered across the south-west.
The major visibility boost for rural training opportunities will help funnel students into local training streams and eliminate their need to complete training in metropolitan areas.
That's important because students historically tend to live and work in the area they study.
The launch of the Regional Medical Training website comes as each of the five south-west municipalities were pinged for its lack anaesthetists, cardiologists and psychiatrists, with "poor access" to services.
Western Victoria Regional Training Hub director Barry Morphett said the resource showed students where and how they could specialise in those much-needed areas.
"The days of trying to get people from Melbourne and luring them down here are over," he said.
"It hasn't been successful over the years and if we do nothing it's just going to be a disaster. This is just one arm of a new strategy to improve the rural workforce."
But Professor Morphett said the range of training opportunities could only go so far.
"There are going to be specialist streams that just can't be done in the country," he said.
"The bottom line of all this is that you don't want doctors to receive inferior training. Introducing radiology registrars here in the country for example isn't something that's really taken off.
"There's probably the potential to do some radiology training in the country but it just hasn't been utilised. There's room to improve in everything but the thing is in Warrnambool they're still going to have to go to Melbourne for certain things.
"But this tool is something we have to develop for the future."
He said there were 40-50 students in the pipeline at Deakin University Warrnambool's medical school but there was no guarantee the majority would stay in the region.
"We have anywhere from 40-50 students here at any one time," Professor Morphett said.
"Those students might come from New South Wales, Queensland or Melbourne. They don't come with the idea of staying and they tend to go back."
He said all institutions were doing their best.
"There's a lot happening to get students in our region to take up training in the country, the problem is it takes time," professor Morphett said.
"All of the hospitals in the region are doing what they can, from Portland which is developing their own intern program to Hamilton which has junior doctors on rotation.
"Now, anyone who is interested in specialist training can also look to see where the jobs are, how they can get into them and what's required which gives them an alternative to going to the city."
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