$1.9m for Broken Hill's Extended Clinical Placement Program

In a visit to Broken Hill at the end of March, the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promised $1.9 million to increase medical student accommodation and teaching facilities at the Broken Hill University Department of Rural Health. Last year, the UDRH launched a new Extended Clinical Placement Program, a multi-university partnership between the Universities of Sydney, Wollongong and Adelaide. Under the new program, medical students complete longer clinical rotations in Broken Hill, allowing them to become better integrated into the community and gain broader exposure to health and medicine in a remote part of Australia.

Dr Emma Boulton, UDRH lecturer and Royal Flying Doctor Service senior medical officer, says the expansion is welcome. "Evidence shows that when students come out here and have a positive learning experience that they come back and join the rural workforce later. So to be able to expand the numbers and give them a really top class learning experience really bodes well for the future workforce of health in Australia."