Advance Australia fairly

Abstract

Australia has a rural health professional crisis and a dependency on overseas trained health professionals. In 2002, the World Rural Health Conference proposed a code of practice to encourage countries to meet their own workforce needs and discourage recruitment activities that could harm another’s health-care system. Rural upbringing has been associated with rural medical practice, but only small numbers of rural students become health professionals. Parents views were sought as they influence their children’s education.

We aimed to identify barriers rural parents saw for their children to study the health professions, determine their views on how to get rural or remote students to become rural health professionals and how the crisis could be resolved.