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Speaker 1: And you may have heard in the news yesterday that

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Speaker 1: twenty one new doctors are among twenty nine students to

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Speaker 1: graduate from Flinders University at a ceremony in Darwen on Tuesday. Now,

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Speaker 1: after several years of studies, they'll deliver a much needed

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Speaker 1: boost to the territories medical workforce, going to intern at

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Speaker 1: Royal Darwin Hospital and other health facilities. Now joining us

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Speaker 1: on the line is the university's Dean of Rural and

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Speaker 1: Remote Health, Professor Robin Aitken. Good morning to you, Robin,

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Speaker 1: Good morning Katie.

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Speaker 2: How are you.

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Speaker 1: I'm really good, lovely to have you on the show now, Robin,

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Speaker 1: twenty one new homegrown doctors. Is that one of the

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Speaker 1: largest cohorts that we've.

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Speaker 2: Seen, Well, it's pretty much the largest cody. We had

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Speaker 2: the largest intake this year and next year. We're expecting

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Speaker 2: thirty six new students who will graduate in four years time,

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Speaker 2: so that'll be increased doctors, local trains into the territory

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Speaker 2: environment and right across all of the regional hospitals, in

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Speaker 2: GP practices and in aboriginal medical control services.

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Speaker 1: Yeah right, so tell us a little bit. I guess

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Speaker 1: about what fields some of those graduates studied and how

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Speaker 1: you know, how I guess they're going to be placed now,

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Speaker 1: well what will happen?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So Katie and all your listeners, these students are

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Speaker 2: part of a cohort each year. It's put through medicine

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Speaker 2: by a very special program that's a collaboration between CDU Flinders,

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Speaker 2: the Northern Territory government and the Commonwealth government. So they're

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Speaker 2: local students who come in. Ninety two percent of them

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Speaker 2: are local. The remaining eight are generally Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 2: Strate Island of students from around the country. They study

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Speaker 2: medicine as graduates, so they've already got careers behind them,

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Speaker 2: and they spend time out at each of the regions

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Speaker 2: and in remote communities really focusing on what is territory medicine,

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Speaker 2: So all of those really unique things around working with

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Speaker 2: territory people and working with conditions and health concerns that

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Speaker 2: you don't see anywhere else in the country.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, right, And is the aim them when they are

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Speaker 1: studying you know, you know, they're studying those kind of

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Speaker 1: different health concerns that you experience here in the Northern Territory.

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Speaker 1: Is the aim really to try and keep them here

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Speaker 1: in the Northern territory long term.

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Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, Katie. So we've got evidence and there's evidence

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Speaker 2: around the country that if you study locally, you're much

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Speaker 2: more likely to stay where you study, so we're one

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Speaker 2: step ahead with that as well. But they also spend

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Speaker 2: the first two years after they've graduated in the territory.

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Speaker 2: There's automatic jobs with the Northern Territory government for them,

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Speaker 2: so that's another really good grounding. And so we have

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Speaker 2: after that two years that they've spent returning their service,

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Speaker 2: fifty four percent of the graduates remain. They generally go

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Speaker 2: away if they want to do specialties, so they can

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Speaker 2: stay in the territory to be a general practitioner, they

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Speaker 2: can stay to study psychiatry, they can stay to study

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Speaker 2: you know, a small number of other professions. But if

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Speaker 2: you want to be a pediatrician, or if you want

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Speaker 2: to do earnos and throat, which we know is really important,

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Speaker 2: we've got to go away. But they come back again.

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Speaker 2: We've got after ten years, we can see that we've

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Speaker 2: got many of those students come back home. So around

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Speaker 2: around sixty percent come back again.

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Speaker 1: Well, I mean that is that's a really good thing.

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Speaker 1: And I think that we all know, you know, we

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Speaker 1: want to make sure that we've you know, that we're

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Speaker 1: growing our own So if we're able to do that,

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Speaker 1: particularly in this field, it's it sounds like it's a

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Speaker 1: great way to do it.

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Speaker 2: It is indeed. And because they are already territorians, and

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Speaker 2: because it's graduate entry, they've already established their family. You know,

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Speaker 2: many of these students have amain in stories. I think

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Speaker 2: you spoke to a couple yesterday. They have families, they

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Speaker 2: have already embedded in communities, they're already you know, sports people,

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Speaker 2: they're already doing community service. So it's not a hard

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Speaker 2: ask for them to stay there. You know, they want

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Speaker 2: to be doctors, they want to serve their communities, and

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Speaker 2: they get to stay here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Oh that's really good. It's good news. Good news story.

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Speaker 1: How are the enrollments looking for next year?

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Speaker 2: So we always have more applicants than enrollments. So we

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Speaker 2: have got our thirty six students. We've actually got a

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Speaker 2: couple of extra because there were a couple of extra

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Speaker 2: CEDYUS students who came in through the undergraduate pathway a

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Speaker 2: couple of years ago. So we'll have thirty eight new

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Speaker 2: students next year, and we also supplement those with students

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Speaker 2: around the country in their final years of medicine. So

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Speaker 2: students who show an interesting Aboriginal interrostate lines are howth

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Speaker 2: in remote health they get an opportunity to come to

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Speaker 2: the territory as well, and we know that they come

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Speaker 2: back after really good experiences too. Well.

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Speaker 1: Flinda's University Dean of Rural and Remote Health, Professor Robin Aidken,

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Speaker 1: lovely to speak to you this morning. Thanks so much

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Speaker 1: for having a chat with me.

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Speaker 2: My pleasure, Katie.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. We'll talk again soon.