20 November 2006
Bendigo residents will play a key role in a ground-breaking development in their local community when they help select medical students to be part of a new, rural-focused medical program to be introduced in the region next year.
As Monash University begins the student selection process for the Extended Rural Cohort, course applicants will face an interview panel made up of representatives from Monash University, the medical profession and the local community.
The interviews are being conducted at the university's Clayton campus this week, with further sessions scheduled for December.
Ms Beth Francis-Wright, President of the Australian Institute of Office Professionals in Bendigo, is one of the local residents who have volunteered to represent their community on the interview panel.
She said the role is an honour and an important community service. "The Extended Rural Cohort is a great step forward for rural Victoria, and to be involved in the selection of its future doctors is a real privilege," Ms Francis-Wright said.
"I think it is essential that community members be included in this selection process because, in the long run, it is the community who will have to interact with these doctors.
"The local population has a right to expect doctors who can relate to their community and who are willing to provide a strong level of commitment," she said.
Professor Geoff Solarsh, Head of the School of Rural Health at Monash, said the interview phase was integral to the selection of students who have the potential to be good doctors as well as a genuine interest in serving rural Victoria.
"Community input at this stage of the selection process is absolutely vital, to identify candidates who are as committed to country Victoria as they are to medicine," he said.
Monash University has joined forces with the University of Melbourne to establish the Extended Rural Cohort stream, which will give school leavers in northern Victoria better access to medical education. Under the initiative, 30 students will complete their clinical training at Monash University's Bendigo Regional Clinical School.
For more information contact Robyn Anns, Media Communications, on +61 3 9905 2097.
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