JCU to deliver 18 new doctors to Sarina and Bowen

The Mackay and Whitsunday critical doctor shortage is being attacked on all sides. Read about the latest boost to our ranks and why one aspiring politician thinks change should have come earlier.

The Mackay region doctor shortage will soon ease further with hundreds of GPs to flood regional, rural and remote communities across the state.

There will be a 17 per cent increase in training GPs across Mackay and Whitsundays for 2022, with 18 new registrars beginning their training.

Bowen will have three new registrars and Sarina will have two new registrars, which is a 50 per cent increase from 2021.

James Cook University has welcomed 87 new training GPs to its program. The new additions take the total cohort of JCU training to 544 for 2022.

Through Rural Training Enhancement initiatives, JCU has prioritised new placements to fill GP shortages in towns such as Bowen, Sarina, Charters Towers, Cloncurry, Monto and Palm Island.

Dawson MP George Christensen, Dr Graeme Cumming and Dr Nicole Higgins speaking about a solution to Mackay's doctor shortage a few weeks ago. Picture: Madeleine Graham

It comes after an announcement last month that Mackay residents would have access to more GP appointments thanks to a classification change to allow medical practices to recruit from a larger pool of doctors.

GP clinics in Mackay can now recruit overseas trained doctors and bonded medical practitioners, after the region successfully campaigned to have its doctor workforce classification, or Distribution Priority Area status, reviewed.

Dawson MP George Christensen said he worked alongside North Queensland Primary Health Network and the Federal Government to change medical workforce classification for the Mackay region, under exceptional circumstances.

Labor’s Dawson candidate Shane Hamilton, however, says the change is too little, too late.

“The DPA just got changed recently,” he said.

“We’ve had a number of GP surgeries in Mackay, up in Cairns as well, lobbying the government for the past five years to get that change so they can get more doctors into their surgeries.

“If they were a government that was serious about health and serious getting more GPs into our communities, they would have done this five years ago.”

Labor's Dawson candidate Shane Hamilton stands with Dr Elissa Hatherly outside Mackay Base Hospital. Dr Hatherly wants to see a funding commitment from the federal government to help train more doctors locally in Mackay.

JCU has also been lobbying the Federal Government for 80 more medical students in Mackay as part of a plan to retain more graduates in this region.

JCU Mackay Clinical School head Dr Elissa Hatherly said the placements were a core priority for the institution.

“We want to expand medical training in North Queensland because other workforce solutions haven’t achieved the results we need,” she said.

An expansion in placements would require additional infrastructure such as lecture rooms and laboratories for anatomy classes.

For Dr Hatherly, the funding increase should be a “no-brainer.”

“The response from all sides of politics has been really positive,” she said.

“Who wouldn’t want to support an education opportunity for our local students and the medical workforce?”

GP Training Director Lawrie McArthur said the new registrars would play an important role in frontline healthcare across the Cape York, western, coastal, central and southwestern regions of Queensland.

Dr Nicole Higgins, Dawson MP George Christensen and Dr Graeme Cumming speaking about a solution to Mackay's doctor shortage a few weeks ago. Picture: Madeleine Graham

“JCU GP training contributes greatly to the health care needs of our regional, rural, and remote communities,” Associate Professor Dr McArthur said.

“These new doctors are fully qualified and bring to these communities their interests, specialised medical skills, and often their families.”

“We have a technologically-enabled, regionally distributed GP training model, that aligns with the Queensland Health and Hospital Services districts.

“This means that we have locally-based medical education teams in 11 rural training nodes across Queensland, who are connected and in-tune with the needs of each community.”

The new registrars began training last week with a two-day workshop, which was moved online because of the impact of Covid-19 in the region.

The registrars will be employed across hospitals, general practices, primary health care centres and Aboriginal Controlled Community health centres.

JCU GP Training principal medical educator Paula Heggarty prepared the introductory workshop over two days, including communication skills and the patient-doctor relationship, clinical reasoning and managing selfcare through the challenges of the pandemic.

“JCU is adapting our education program to provide resources for doctors in their practices to ensure they’re available to provide care where it is needed – in the community,” Dr Heggarty said.

“This includes training in use of telehealth consultations, connectivity to others to find updated medical information and Zoom meetings for peer group training.

“The year ahead is exciting for these new doctors who will be independent GPs in two years.

“They face significant challenges during a global pandemic. We know they will be committed to their practices and patients and very enthusiastic about their new careers.”

New registrar Georgia Foley will train to be a GP at The Doctor House in Yungaburra on the Atherton Tablelands.

It’s a place that holds fond memories for Dr Foley, who undertook rural placement at the practice as a JCU medicine student.

New registrar Dr Georgia Foley will train to be a GP at The Doctor House in Yungaburra on the Atherton Tablelands after studying at James Cook University. Picture: Contributed/JCU

“The doctor-patient relationship and continuity of care were the stand-out aspects of the experience,” Dr Foley said.

“You see the doctors here really getting out into the community and it seems like a really good lifestyle.

“I remember thinking what a lovely community it was and that I could really have a career here.”

Dr Foley was set on continuing the pathway through JCU GP training because of the strong alignment with rural and remote medicine and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

“I grew up in a small rural town on the far south coast of New South Wales,” she said.

“I was very aware of the difficulty accessing a good GP and the burden of having to travel for a specialist.

“The GP is often the first contact patients have with healthcare and they rely on and trust their GP.

“Following JCU GP training, I hope to be able to contribute to the community further through advanced training in obstetrics to be able to provide antenatal care to women and families in the region.”