Can the location of GP

placements and students’

experience with their
placement really influence
medical students’ decisions to
pursue GP as a career?
Aim
To investigate whether clinical-year
medical students’ experience with their GP
placements or where they were placed
(rural/remote versus metropolitan/urban
locations) had any positive impact on the
likelihood of pursuing GP as a career.
Background ● Insufficient numbers of general practitioners in
Australia, especially in rural and remote areas

● Undergraduate (UG) GP placements could be a

possible intervention strategy

● Potential might be more significant in Australia, as only

a small minority of Australian medical students have
clear career intentions at graduation
● Previous research has shown UG GP
placements have positive impact on a
medical student’s likelihood to
consider/pursue a GP career
● Longitudinal primary care programs
more effective than isolated
placements
● Medical education which takes place in GP
settings is becoming more and more
common in the last decade-
○ Flinders University: Parallel Rural
Community Curriculum
● Longitudinal integrated clerkships (LICs)-
another emerging medical education
curriculum
● However, to the best of our knowledge,
there are no studies which compare urban
vs rural GP placements
● Results of this study can be used to guide
appropriate exposures to GP during
medical education to increase proportion
of students pursuing GP
 2009 2019

Gender, Age Gender, Age

What GP training Attitude toward

conducted, if so general practise
where?

Methods Experience in the If GP placement was

placement completed, where and
its rating

Likelihood of Likelihood of working

1. Ethics approval granted by UOW pursuing a career as a in a rural area after GP
2. Survey distributed on Survey Monkey GP placement
3. Analysis of data using SPSS
4. Finding correlation Likelihood of
pursuing a career as a
GP
Methods - Analysis

2009
Methods - Analysis

2019
Key Findings - 2009

1242 students were surveyed with 520 81.3% rated their GP experience “mostly
having completed a GP rotation positive” in 2009

The region where GP placement was Correlation between the rating of

undertaken did not significantly increase students’ GP experiences (irrespective of
the likelihood of pursuing GP as a career location) and the desire to become a GP
X2 (1, N = 312) = 1.871, p>0.05 in the future X2 (1, N = 335) = 45.503,
p<0.001
Positive responses

EXPOSURE

CHALLENGING

CONSULTS
2009 Data
 Key Findings - 2019
•In 2019, of a total of 7836
clinical-year students, 705 clinical-
year students were surveyed
•Analysis of data collected in 2019 supports
the fact that the location of GP rotation did
not have a significant impact on the
dependent variable X2 (1, N = 437) = 0.073,
p>0.05.
•78.2% of metropolitan participants in the
2019 survey responded with “mostly
positive”, while 84.7% of 2019 rural
placement participants answered likewise
•However, a strong association was seen
between the participant rating of their GP
placement and an increase in desire to be
a GP X2 (1, N = 436) = 50.24, p<0.001.
Positive responses

PARALLEL PROCEDURAL
CONSULTING EXPERIENCE
2019 Data
 Factors that could affects choosing
general practise as a career choice

- Beliefs
Discussion -
-
Personal preference
Lifestyle
- Proximity of family
- Better experience
- Student placement
 Students’ experience of their
placement was the only significant
independent variable (not location).

Potential reasons are...

Discussion - Practical experience (parallel

consulting)
- Rural experience
- Variation of environment
- Access to practical resources

But research needs to be done ...

Conclusion

Across both years, •Further study should focus

students’ experience with on how to better engage with
students during their
their placements more
placements or how to further
significant compared to incorporate the elements that
placement location students highlighted – parallel
consulting, procedural
experiences etc.
THANK YOU
Limitations

1. 2009 data
a. Desire/interest to become a GP prior to GP rotation not established in data collection

2. 2019 data
b. Overall attitude variable - prior to GP placement or after GP placement not established
c. Likelihood to work in rural/remote regions variable - long-term or short-term?

3. No raw data on ethnicity / Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander status

4. Differences in data collection between 2009 v 2019

d. 2009 - participants asked to give a global rating for both placements; 2019 - participants asked to
give a separate rating for each placement they did (one for rural, one for metro)
i. Potential confounding variable

5. Missing variables
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