Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners

Today, a review of 30 years of literature is calling for dedicated rural medical training.

Joining us to discuss the proposed GP rural pathway and how we can get more doctors into the country is Dr. Luke Bradford, President of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

Luke, g'day, mate.

Welcome to the show.

All right.

Okay.

Dr. Luke Bragford, President of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners.

I think this is a great initiative.

Health leaders are calling for a dedicated training pathway for rural GPs as many rural practices struggle to recruit doctors and a large share of the workforce nears retirement.

Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners President Dr Luke Bradford says strengthening the rural GP workforce is one of the most effective ways to improve access and reduce health inequities for rural communities including rural Māori.

The college has proposed GP Rural, a postgraduate training pathway to better prepare doctors for rural practice.

Hauratai Whenua Rural Health Network Chief Executive Dr Grant Davidson says rural communities can't afford to wait for the workforce gap to widen further.

good thanks good to talk to you In

Rural Focus today, I see that the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners and the Rural Health Network, they're calling for investment in a proposed new training pathway for rural GPs, warning that many rural practices are actually struggling to recruit while a large share of the existing workforce nears retirement so the two organizations say strengthening the rural gp workforce is one of the most effective ways to improve access to care and reduce long-standing health inequalities the college president dr luke bradford says that rural gps are highly skilled generalists working across a broad scope of practice and a review published in the new zealand medical journal draws together three decades of new zealand research on rural medicine according to the college it identifies repeated calls over that period for rural specific postgraduate training and points to the role dedicated training pathways can play in supporting rural medical careers so in response the college has developed gp rural a proposed postgraduate pathway sitting within its existing general practice education programs.

So hopefully some progress can be made on that.

That is our program for today, everybody.