Pomegranate Health
Pomegranate Health is an award-winning podcast about the culture of medicine, from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians. We ask how doctors make difficult clinical and ethical decisions, how doctor-patient communication can be improved, and how healthcare delivery can be made more equitable.
This is also the home of [IMJ On-Air], a podcast to accompany the RACP's Internal Medicine Journal. Interviews with authors are conducted by specialist section editors. Find out more at the website www.racp.edu.au/podcast and get in touch via the address podcast@racp.edu.au
Pomegranate Health
Ep109: Cultivating a rural workforce
Australia is a big continent and sparsely populated continent. 28 percent of Australians live in areas classified regional, rural or remote and their access to health services is much more limited. It’s estimated that between 2009 and 2011 there were 19,000 excess deaths in regional and remote areas as compared to the major cities. No doubt, socioeconomic disadvantage is factor in that mortality gap, but inequitable access to healthcare is also a major driver.
In this podcast we focus specifically on the shortage in health practitioners in the regions. Even in regional centres, the density of physicians by population count is two thirds what it is in the major cities. By the time you get to large rural towns it’s just over a third that baseline. In this podcast we discuss opportunities to lift recruitment and retention. This means improving the experience for trainees and the esteem for rural medicine in the eyes of the profession at large.
Guests
Adjunct Professor Graeme Maguire PhD FRACP MHM MPHTM (President Adult Medicine Division, RACP and Director of Medical Education, WA Country Health Service)
Dr Sarah Straw FRACP (WACHS Kimberley Regional Physician Team; Northern Hospital, Melb; Rural, Regional and Remote Working Group, RACP)
Associate Professor Matthew McGrail PhD (Head Regional Training Hub Research, University of Queensland)
Production
Produced by Mic Cavazzini DPhil. Music courtesy of FreeMusic Archive includes ‘The Envelope’, ‘Cast in Wicker’ and ‘Planting Flags’ by Blue Dot Sessions. Music licenced from Epidemic Sound includes ‘The Mission’ by J. F. Gloss. Photo by Pearshop on behalf of RACP.
Editorial feedback kindly provided by RACP physicians Steve Flecknoe-Brown, Zac Fuller, Aidan Tan, Sasha Taylor, Jia Wen Chong, Joseph Lee, Fionnuala Fagan, Stephen Bacchi, Chris Leung, David Arroyo, Nele Legge, Li-Zsa Tan and Thazin Thazin.
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