End the blame game on internships for international students

NEXT Sunday some lucky Sydneysiders will have a free clean of their car windows by some of our best and brightest. Medical students will be doing odd jobs to highlight the growing risk that large numbers of international students from this year's crop of graduates may find themselves unemployed next year.

The "scrubs on the street" protest comes as state governments refuse to make additional contributions to the costs of internships for the swelling numbers of international medical trainees. The federal government has offered $10 million to help fund places for international students likely to miss out this year. Yet the offer was contingent on the states increasing their contribution to ensure the remaining students were offered places in public hospitals.

There are about 150 international students at risk of being sent home without the final training that allows them to be registered to practise medicine. The heads of medical schools are greatly concerned by this situation, which threatens the schools' international reputations. This crisis has been brewing since the Howard government expanded places in medical school in response to the growing demand for doctors.

For years the medical schools have said nothing was being done to close the large gap between the numbers of international students graduating this year and the available intern places. This month is crunch time. Yet the problem remains unresolved as state and federal health departments exchange volleys over who will pay for the increased training.

"It defies comprehension that we have not been able to resolve this issue after all this time," says Bruce Robinson, dean of medicine at the University of Sydney, calling for high-level political intervention to end this damaging game of political football.

Graduates do not know whether to go home without their final training or to hope the state bureaucrats open up more hospital places. That could be done without eating into strapped health budgets by using these interns instead of some of the 3000 foreign doctors, many of whom work under supervision in state hospitals.

International students at NSW universities are in the worst position, with 140 international students graduating and 110 still needing an internship. Queensland has similar numbers graduating with 30 still not placed.

Victoria has 149 graduating and all but 10 placed in hospitals. Unfortunately, Victoria has added to the chaos by giving preference to international students ahead of Victorian students who did their medical degree elsewhere.

This has left Victorian students who had planned to return home for hospital training locked out of their state system, adding to the problems in NSW because Victorian students have taken places that would have gone to the international graduates. The whole thing is a mess.

If you were to end up in a public hospital next year, think about whether you'd prefer your doctor to be trained here or recruited from overseas. No-brainer? Yes, it seems logical to assume that our demanding medical training would produce the consistently high standards we need in our doctors.

Having made the correct decision to expand medical places to meet growing medical workforce demand and having paid more than $85,000 to train each of these young people, we need to hang on to all of them instead of wasting more money recruiting doctors from overseas.

Help these young graduates by lobbying health ministers on their behalf: www.sydneymedsoc.org.au/interns.

Bettina Arndt is a social commentator.