Work will start on building Charles Sturt University’s first school for doctors next year after the program received $22 million in federal government funding.
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The medical school will be based at CSU’s Orange campus with an additional learning centre to be set up at the Orange Hospital campus.
CSU vice-chancellor Professor Andrew Vann said architects had already started designing the new complex and he expected construction work to start in the middle of next year.
It will be completed in time for the first intake of 37 first-year students in 2021.
“The bulk of [the $22 million] is going be used to refurbish and extend facilities here. There is also some funds reserved for additional investment at the hospital site eventually,” he said.
Professor Vann said there would be teaching facilities, an ultrasound room, an academic hub, an Indigenous support centre, a conference room and research centre.
He said the school would focus on teaching regional students.
We’ve committed to get 80 per cent genuinely regional and rural students in.
- Professor Andrew Vann, CSU vice-chancellor
“We’ve committed to get 80 per cent genuinely regional and rural students in, it will be a stretch, it will be something we will have to work on,” he said.
CSU will partner with Western Sydney University and the community on the project.
Professor Vann said they had met with doctors and health professionals in Orange to get them involved.
“They have understandable and justifiable concerns about whether this will create extra work for them, [in providing clinical supervision for students] but the point we made to them is we can advocate on their behalf now,” he said.
“All of the other medical programs have found this actually strengthens the local medical community.”
Minister for Regional Services and Decentralisation Senator Bridget McKenzie announced the funding at CSU on Friday.
It is part of $74 million allocated to support five medical schools in the Murray-Darling Medical Schools Network.
Senator McKenzie said it would solve shortages of doctors in regional areas.
“Pick your students from rural and regional Australia, embed them in training in rural and regional Australia and guess what, they will practice in rural and regional Australia,” she said.
“James Cook University’s being doing this for years, Charles Sturt’s being doing it through allied health professionals. We know because the data works.”
Member for Calare Andrew Gee said previous schemes to bring doctors to rural areas had failed but this would create a hub for medical training and research.
“Country communities were crying out for us to try something different,” he said.
“$22 million shows this is a game changer and that there is no turning back now, this medical school will happen.”