Northern Beaches Hospital to open school for uni students
Northern Beaches Hospital has grand plans to open a new medical school for uni students and help support the next generation of doctors and nurses on the peninsula.
Manly
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Northern Beaches Hospital is in discussions with universities to establish a school for medical students at the Frenchs Forest site by 2020.
The new CEO Andrew Newton said he wanted to help grow the next generation of medical professionals on the peninsula.
He said Healthscope, the private operator which runs the hospital, was aiming to launch a training school in time for the start of the new academic year.
“We’re currently in talks with one or two universities and they’re very keen to come on site and build up a level of academia here,” Mr Newton said.
He said that the hospital had a responsibility to support the future medical workforce on the northern beaches — and it could help keep them in the area.
Healthscope this year launched an international recruitment campaign to find more doctors and nurses because it was struggling to fill roles.
There are now 2000 full-time equivalents working at the Frenchs Forest site, with more to come.
“If we can get the people in, the locals who are students, and really get their level of interest, hopefully we can keep them on the beaches,” he said.
“Then they become the senior doctors and the GPs of the future.”
There have been recent calls for a university for the northern beaches, but Mr Newton said they would not need to wait for that to happen, as the hospital could host its own school on site.
Mr Newton would not reveal which universities he had been talking to, but said he was keen to work with those that are close by.
Macquarie University and the Australian Catholic University are the closest to Frenchs Forest.
Mr Newton said they would be looking to place undergraduates or postgraduates studying to be doctors, nurses or in allied health.
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The hospital already qualifies as a teaching hospital because it takes Junior Medical Officers in their first and second year and registrars affiliated to specialist learning colleges such as obstetrics or anaesthetics.
This new clinical school would be in addition to that.
“Students would do the core clinical and academic subjects at university and they would come here on placement,” he said.
“There’s a thirst for that, there’s a willingness.
“The hospital has got really good supervision for clinical placement and we’re really welcoming of that.”
Mr Newton — who started his career as a theatre nurse in the UK and has managed hospitals in Australia for 19 years — took up his new role at the private-public hospital seven weeks ago.
The previous CEO Deborah Latta resigned just weeks after the hospital opened.
Staff and patients reported that there were not enough staff or medical supplies in place.
Mr Newton said they had worked through the issues following the opening.