And in a bid to help fill the doctor shortage in rural areas, all places will be set aside for students from the greater south-west district.

The campaign for a medical degree to be offered at the Warrnambool campus saw the third and fourth years of the degree introduced by the university more than a decade ago. And now it will be expanded to include the first two years and give homegrown students the option of doing their whole post-graduate degree in medicine in Warrnambool.

Deakin University campus director Alistair McCosh said the arrival of the full post-graduate course had been a long time coming and had to go through a "significant" approval process.

It is a big vote of confidence for the campus that only seven years ago was under threat of closure but was kept open after a community campaign.

And now the future of the campus was going from "strength to strength", Mr McCosh said, and the expansion of the medical degree consolidated that.

"To run a full medical degree in our region - we'd be one of the only regions in Australia that's doing that," he said. "Generally they're in big metro areas. There are other examples of regional medicine, but to do the whole thing here..."

Mr McCosh said the campus also offered a pathway for students to be able to do all their training in Warrnambool if they wanted to. "I'm confident that students will be able to come here, do nursing for example and then transition into the medical degree. It's a big win," he said.

It means someone like South West Healthcare intern Gaby Carty, who grew up in Warrnambool, could have returned home to study a lot sooner.

After attending Warrnambool East Primary School and Warrnambool College before taking a gap year to work, she left to go to Melbourne to complete her science degree.

She had to do the first two years of her medical degree in Geelong before coming back to Warrnambool for the past two years. And when she's fully trained, she hopes to work in a rural or regional area.

She said the arrival of the whole post-graduate medical degree at the Warrnambool campus meant students wouldn't have to pick up and leave to study to become a doctor.

"I suppose for me it means I could have come home a bit sooner. You appreciate Warrnambool a bit more when you've been and lived in Melbourne," she said.

"It's a pretty big deal for people not to have to move so far away. They're happy here, they want to stay here it's just that it's not been an option that's been available to them. So it opens a lot of doors for them."

South West Healthcare chief executive officer Craig Fraser said offering the whole medical degree at Warrnambool put a career in medicine back within the reach of country students.

"People in country areas understand that when their children go and do medical degrees elsewhere it costs a lot of money for housing and accommodation," he said. "If they are able to do it locally and live locally with their parents, or family or friends, then it's more affordable for them.

"In the past, the first few years of medical degrees have been out of reach for some people and I think it really brings it back into reach to be able to do it."

Mr Fraser said the hospital and the region had been very fortunate to have the nursing course at the Warrnambool university campus which allowed local people to train here, and then stay for work. The medical degree would do the same.

"What we hope longer-term is not only do local people get greater access to medical degrees, but it helps us retain local people in our region and help us fulfil that workforce need in medical specialities," he said.

Mr Fraser said the shortage of medical staff came after a demanding few years during the pandemic, with many in need of a break. "So we do need more doctors coming through to fill that gap that exists," he said.

Head of Warrnambool Clinical School Dr Barry Morphett said the post-graduate degree - Doctor of Medicine (MD) - would have an intake of 15 places a year in Warrnambool and another 15 in Ararat.

First year would start in 2024, and the second year would be introduced to the campus in 2025.

Until now, Deakin medical students have had to complete their first two years at the Waurn Ponds campus in Geelong.

"The current system is they go to school and they've got to do an undergraduate degree - and that can be in anything - and then they apply to get into medicine which is a post-graduate entry," Dr Morphett said.

"At the present moment, they can do their undergraduate degree anywhere and anyone from Australia apply for entry to Deakin. They get about 4000 applications, so to get in you've got to be pretty clever.

"What the system is going to change is that you will still have to do your undergraduate degree but instead of going into a 4000 competition, it's just going to be people from our region."

Those eligible would come from the Deakin rural "footprint" - an area which covers from just outside Geelong to the South Australian border and up to the Western Highway.

"If you've lived in Warrnambool, you'll have the opportunity once you get into medicine to do first year and second year here and third and fourth year at South West Healthcare," Dr Morphett said.

"The same applies for people from Portland and anywhere else in the region."

Dr Morphett said the whole concept was built on the idea that the best way to try and improve the medical workforce was take people from our own region and educate them here. And what has been clearly shown, he said, was that the education was "top quality".

Dean of the School of Medicine, Professor Gary Rogers, said Deakin was committed to recruiting and retaining rural students to work as doctors in their communities.

In other changes, the significant Graduate Medical Schools Admissions Test requirement would be waived for MD applicants in Deakin's rural footprint, as well as the requirement to have completed tertiary studies within the previous 10 years.

Deakin's director of rural medical education, Associate Professor Lara Fuller, said it was hoped the changes would open the door for a whole new generation of rural students to consider becoming rural doctors.

"It is important that potential applicants, such as existing rural health professionals, don't have to sit expensive admissions exams and undertake further study just to apply for the MD," Associate Professor Fuller said.

"We will aim to deliver as much teaching at the rural sites, with occasional requirements to attend teaching activities at the Waurn Ponds campus."

Professor Fuller said the university had already started recruitment of professional staff and would also be employing academic staff in each region to deliver the program. Applications for Deakin's Rural Training Stream in 2024 open in May.

Mr McCosh said the arrival of the full post-graduate degree added another dimension to what the campus offered. "If you train them here you've got a much better chance of keeping them," he said.

"From our point of view it just builds another cohort of students. The engagement opportunities of vibrancy around campus. And it will benefit all of us. It's not about Warrnambool - the Portlands and the Hamiltons will benefit out of this."

Mr McCosh said Deakin would continue to grow.

"And that's not only in terms of undergrad, but post-grad, but also around our research," he said.