not enough jobs for junior docs (part 2)

The AM Program onABC Radio this week discussed how "Medical Deans lament [the] lack of internships" in Australia.

Surely the availability internships should have been a consideration when the deans and senior folk within the Universities were considering starting up the medical schools or setting student numbers in th the first place.

...and surely when the numbers of graduating doctors could have been anticipated (not that hard considering that people can count how many medical students there are in the medical schools years ahead of them graduating) we could have had years of developing models to provide junior jobs instead of going "oops we forgot that they needed internships to get qualified" when they are just about to graduate.

There is now a very short time fram in which to try and build the capacity of the health system to supervise junior doctors. It is all well and good to say - lets put them in private hospitals and general practice. The reality is that interns do require a significant amount of supervision and unless there is funding available for the time of senior doctors to do the supervising, adequate medical indemnity provisions to cover the junior doctors in non traditional settings, adequate scope of pathology and clinical exposure to ensure an adequate training experience, and appropriate administrative support for the private sector to take on junior doctors, this is not going to be a satisfactory solution.