New GP teaching facility for north-west Melbourne growth corridor

The University of Melbourne now has access to new teaching facilities for medical students in GP clinics and Community Health Services in Melbourne’s rapidly growing northern and western suburbs. 

The initiative demonstrates and strengthens the commitment that GPs have towards training the next generation of health professionals.

Australian Government Grant funding of $1.9 million for the University was made under the Innovative Clinical Teaching and Training Grants, aiming to increase the number of clinical teaching and training opportunities around Australia. 

The project has provided infrastructure funding for 20 healthcare settings (including two Aboriginal medical services) to enable GP clinics to create suitable teaching and learning spaces. Clinics have been extended or renovated to provide space for students while they are on placement.

Professor Jane Gunn, Head of the Department of General Practice at the Melbourne Medical School, says the program will assist medical students to gain critical primary care experience in a real-life setting. 

“Primary care experience in the suburbs is crucial in the training of doctors. The Melbourne Medical School has two clinical schools in the Northern and Western/Sunshine hospitals and this program being rolled out over actual working clinics means our students receive real and immediate insight into primary care.

“Our students attend these clinics one day per week and participate in all aspects of the practice and receive the benefit of continuity of care for patients, under the supervision of a GP.

“The rise in chronic disease, the ageing population and the need for more prevention means that more health care will be delivered in the community. Doctors of the future will benefit from being trained in the setting in which most health care will be delivered.

“These students are not being trained to be GPs but rather they are learning medicine in the setting where people experience most of their health care,” Professor Gunn says.

www.mdhs.unimelb.edu.au