Sarah Dalton: Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Executive Director on Waikato medical school given the greenlight

A belief the Government's claim a new medical school in Hamilton will provide more rural doctors and GPs is yet to be proven. 

Cabinet's putting almost $83 million into the $230 million new University of Waikato Medical School, opening in 2028.

Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Executive Director Sarah Dalton told Ryan Bridge no doctor out of university has any specialty, and it takes years of experience to get to this point. 

Dalton says everyone might hope that more people going to medical school will be GPs and rural hospital medical specialists, but this isn't guaranteed. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The government's given the green light a new medical school
at the University of Waikato. Doors will open twenty twenty
eight a starting role of one hundred and twenty students
a year. Eighty two million bucks. That's how much we
pay down from two hundred and eighty million dollars which
was previously promised at the election from National Sarah Dalton's
the executive director of the Association of Salary Medical Specialist
Sarah Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Good morning, Ryan, How are you doing very well?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Thank you. The government says we will get more rural
doctors and gps out of doing this at Wyicuta university.
What stops you from you know, once you do your studies,
how do you decide or are there rules about where
you must go next.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
It's just every new graduate doctor has to do two
years practical work. Generally in hospitals. They're the ones known
as house officers before they get their general registration with
the Medical Council. So no doctor emerging from university has
any specialty. They might think they know that they want
to be a rural doctor or a surgeon, or an

(01:02):
anethetist or a psychiatrist or a GP that they have
to do this two years and then they will continue
on as a registrar, choose a training program with one
of the colleges, and once they emerge from that training
program five to ten years later, they will be a specialist. So,
you know, everyone might hope that more people who go

(01:24):
to this new medical school will be GPS or rural
hospital medicine specialists, but we can't guarantee that. The bottom line,
and this is the good news, is that the more
doctors we train, the more doctors will have And actually
the highest proportions of any single specialist group registered with
the Medical Council now are GPS. So it stands the

(01:45):
reason that the more we train, the more GPS will get.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
Do we know, of the doctors that we currently train,
how many of them end up overseas?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
I don't personally know that statistic, But.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
Because is there a risk that we train these people
and then they bugger off?

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Oh, there is absolutely that risk. But there is a
side of the coin, which is make the terms and
conditions to stay here, make it make it easier to
stay here, make it better to stay here, Guarantee them jobs,
make sure they're earning good money. We've got a real
problem with Australian doctors earning so much more than they
can possibly earn a new helmand.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
How much do you mean, because I mean I've seen
some of those specialist rates and I've had friends have
moved for these rates and they're double. What you know,
do we need to double? What are you realistically?

Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah, if you're talking senior doctors, obviously we because we
deal with salary doctors. So if we just make that comparison.
In Australian they have a state system. So the state
we are doctors earn the least currently is New South Wales.
Our specialist scale starts at step one, goes all the

(02:55):
way to step fifteen, So after fifteen years a doctor
here will be top of our specialist scale. And in
Australia in their first year they can earn more than
our step fifteen, which so you can go to Australia
and earn more in your first year then you can
earn yeah, in.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Your first day experience, Sarah, that is that is quite
a number. Sarah Doll's and an executive director of the
Association of Salaried Medical Specialists. For more from early edition
with Ryan Bridge, listen live to news talks at b
from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.