Andrew Dickens: We need more doctors, but is a third school the solution?

We all know we need more doctors. A lot more. Considering how long it takes to train a doctor, this is something that someone should have probably thought about 20 or 30 years ago. New Zealand's population has doubled since the last med school was opened, so you can see how far behind we are. 

But now we have a proposed new medical school in the Waikato. 

This was dreamed up last electoral cycle by the University with the help of a report and analysis by Stephen Joyce with his consultation hat on. Shane Reti was heavily involved with the university. The University called the school a present for National's second term. 

Low and behold, it became National’s policy at the last election, and it seemed a vote winner. After all, we know we need more doctors 

But then it all got sticky with bureaucrats and coalition partners suggesting the idea might not fly. 

Now it’s back with a miraculous cut in budgeted costs and a substantial expectation that generous benefactors would make up any underfunding from the government. And if they didn't, the University had the means to cover any shortfall. 

The two universities that already have medical schools don’t support it. They say just give us more money and we’ll make more doctors. A PWC report last year said a school was duplicative and expensive. 

And with the need for doctors so urgent there’s the time factor – to get a school up and running takes a while. You need all sorts of specialised spaces. The Waikato Graduate School of Medicine is scheduled to open in 2028 —three years from now— versus two schools who claim they could grow intake from next year. 

The whole thing seems a bit rife of political necessity.  They promised it, so it has to happen whether it's a good idea or not. It reeks of wasteful government spending as a payback to loyal supporters. It preys on the largesse of the wealthy. Is it a good idea? 

If it was a good idea why has not been part of our long-term planning for longer? Training to become a doctor in New Zealand typically takes 12 to 17 years, depending on the chosen specialty. 

But a third school has suddenly landed in our lap. I'm not against Waikato having a medical school in the future – health experts have said rural-origin students who train in rural areas and are trained by rural health professionals are six times more likely to work in those rural areas post-graduation. Now Hamilton is quite rural, but frankly so is Otago so I'm not sure that's a reason to have a school there. But right now, it seems a bit rushed and political.  

So do you support the establishment of a school in Hamilton? 

And then there's all the other issues around medical staff. 

The proposal to date aims to produce proportionately more rural and primary care doctors via a four-year graduate programme, largely based in the community and the wider region’s general practices, yet drawing also on the many excellent clinicians at Waikato and other regional hospitals, so that graduates (as at Otago and Auckland) are equipped to go into any area of medicine. 

Many in the medical sphere say the real problem in banging out doctors is not in the number of places at a school, but where they go to get on-the-job training – placements 

So to train more doctors we need more doctors to train more doctors.  And this school does nothing to solve that problem. 

Once they're trained in theory, how do we train them practically? Once they are trained, how do we pay them properly, and then how do we keep them from disappearing overseas? 

And then there's the question of where we find people with the ability and desire to go through the arduous process of training to be a doctor. 

Because doctors don't grow on trees.  

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