Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Regional Health) Share this | Hansard source

Last year, 18 November was a real milestone for the Murray-Darling medical school. The Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network was established by the coalition government and consists of five rurally based university medical school programs in the Murray-Darling region of New South Wales and Victoria. The goals of the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network over the short to long term are to increase the number of medical students studying in rural areas, increase the number of medical graduates working in rural areas, build new or expanded teaching facilities with extra student accommodation across several sites in the Murray-Darling region and benefit rural hospitals through the increased staffing and workforce availability.

The first cohort came from across regional Victoria and New South Wales. They began their Bachelor of Biomedical Science degrees at La Trobe's Albury-Wodonga and Bendigo campuses in 2019. What happens then is that they progress to the University of Melbourne's Doctor of Medicine rural pathway postgraduate degree in my home town of Shepparton, and students are further embedded in regional settings for all their clinical training, with rotations throughout north, central and north-east Victoria.

Does it work well? It's been an incredible success. Abigail Rowe, who's the 2025 valedictorian and graduate of the Doctor of Medicine rural pathway program, was born and raised in Mildura. She's finished her degree, and she's returning home to begin her internship as a doctor at the Mildura Base Public Hospital. This is what Abigail had to say:

Returning to Mildura as a doctor is the culmination of everything I've worked towards over the past seven-plus years. Every tough exam, clinical placement and moment of homesickness were made easier by reminding myself of this goal.

She will make a great regional doctor.

We need more young people, more young doctors, studying and training and then working in regional health. We know that when they study regionally they work regionally. We need more nurses, midwives and allied health professionals in regional Australia. It gives these regional kids opportunity. It allows them to study closer to home. Keeping them living and working regionally when they graduate is an incredibly successful model. We need to continue it, and we need to expand it across regional Australia, not just in the Murray-Darling region but across regional Australia, because these kids are going to make incredible, compassionate, kind and caring doctors in the communities that they grew up in, and we've got to support more of that to happen.

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