Medical School prognosis looks good

The first students at the University of Wollongong’s Graduate School of Medicine will start their course on 29 January, 2007 at our Wollongong and Shoalhaven campuses. Faculty of Health and Behavioural Sciences Dean PROFESSOR DON IVERSON, who played an integral role in the School’s establishment, outlines the impact he expects it will have on the region.

A decade from now, I expect the Graduate School of Medicine will have proven itself to be the single best thing that the University of Wollongong has done for the community that it serves.

That’s a very big statement, considering the extraordinary educational and economic contribution this University makes to Wollongong and the Illawarra Region, the Shoalhaven and South Coast – and indeed, to the State.

Clearly, the University has played a pivotal role in the region’s transformation over the past 25 years, and provided many thousands of residents with the opportunity for a top-class tertiary education.

However, I believe the best is yet to come – and the Graduate School of Medicine will lead the way. The GSM’s arrival will change the community forever, providing a quantum leap in the standard of medical facilities and treatment available, thus allowing the region to grow in ways that simply would not otherwise be possible.

From my experience in the United States, Canada and Britain, the arrival of a Medical School in a community makes a dramatic difference to a regional centre, both in medical and economic terms. Closer to home, the Newcastle experience is clear evidence of the advantages of having a Medical School located in a regional centre.

This region has many fine doctors, but not enough of them. This has led to feeling that we are the “poor relation” of the Sydney medical community.

So perhaps most importantly, the GSM will change the psyche of the entire community because of the concentration of medical expertise that will develop around the School.

Suddenly, instead of struggling to attract enough general practitioners and specialists, we will attract leading national and international practitioners who affiliate with the Medical School but also practice medicine in the local hospitals and clinics.

People will be far less inclined to travel to Sydney for major surgery or specialist medical treatment because everything they need will be on their doorstep, in far greater concentrations than currently exist.

I have seen it happen in other countries, and have no reason to think it won’t happen in the Illawarra and the Shoalhaven.

And the existing medical practitioners have nothing to fear but much to gain from the Medical School’s development. Overseas experience suggests that they benefit greatly, at both a professional and personal level, from this influx of medical expertise and medical students. This will be magnified in the Illawarra and Shoalhaven, where more than 200 doctors have shown their commitment to the GSM by joining as honoraries so that they can be involved in various aspects of our course delivery and in hosting medical students for clinical placements.

I believe the GSM will impact positively on the region in a number of ways, including:

MEDICAL:

• Providing a steady stream of recently graduated doctors who have been trained in the region, developed connections with the medical fraternity who practice and live here, so are therefore more likely to stay after graduation.
• Increasing the number of registrars training in Wollongong and Shoalhaven hospitals, some of whom will stay on and increase the number of specialist physicians.
• Attracting specialist physicians to the region who want to be associated with the GSM. We have already attracted top international medical practitioners (who incidentally are greatly impressed by what they find here), and expect the word will quickly spread overseas about the lifestyle, medical and academic opportunities available.
• Further increasing the quality of medicine practised in private surgeries and public and private hospitals – an inevitable outcome when doctors are regularly exposed to medical students and registrars.

ECONOMIC:

• Providing impetus for the development of moderate to large private hospitals, generating considerable employment and other economic spin-offs. We can expect major private hospitals to be developed in the Wollongong, Shellharbour City and Shoalhaven areas over the next decade. They simply would not be built if there was no Medical School in the region.
• Further enhancing UOW’s (and therefore Wollongong’s) international recognition. We are creating a unique and innovative “UOW Model” for training doctors at the GSM, and expect to develop an international reputation for medical education over time. This will be facilitated by our holding annual training courses designed to attract international visitors.
• Attracting small and medium-sized medical research companies, as the GSM’s research program expands over time. For example, the Peninsula Medical School in south-west England reported three start-up cardiovascular research businesses located nearby shortly after its Medicial School started. UOW has an ideal location for such businesses at the Innovation Campus.
• Helping attract new businesses and professional staff to the region. People considering re-locating to an area cite good health care and good education as two important pre-requisites. Wollongong and the Shoalhaven will be able to present a compelling case on both fronts.

And of course there is one other important factor. The GSM will mean that the region’s bright students who want to study medicine will be able to able to achieve that at our Wollongong or Shoalhaven Campuses – so there will be a much greater chance of  retaining that talent and potential in tent and potential in the region.