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Number of First Nations medical students rise in Australia



The Canberra Times reports that the number of Torres Strait Islander medical students has increased dramatically in the past decade. It now matches the ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous people in Australia for the first time.

Last year, 80 of Australia’s 3,241 domestic first-year medical students were First Nations peoples, which is 2.5% of medical students and an increase of almost one percent on 2004 figures. The reason to celebrate is not only due to the increase, but also because 2.5% of Australia’s population is Torres Strait Islander – and this is the first time that there has been parity with the ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous population in Australia.

The main challenge now is for all of them to graduate. Previously only about 30% of First Nations students did not complete the course (compared with about 2% of other students). This was mainly due to family and cultural commitments, financial difficulties, and discrimination, said Associate Professor Peter O’Mara, a Wiradjuri man, General Practitioner, health specialist, and president of the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association.

The Canberra Times reports that a new agreement between the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association and the Medical Deans of Australia and New Zealand aims to monitor and support indigenous medical students to enable more graduates. This follows a Medical Deans of Australia and New Zealand report, published in 2012, which found a large variation in university indigenous health programs – in the recruitment of students, their retention, and their training.

The MDANZ report indicated that about 66% of First Nations medical students had experienced discrimination from other students, residents, professors, or physicians during their courses, with 64% feeling inadequately supported. In addition, and in general, they indicated that they felt more comfortable with indigenous doctors – however, there are only about 160 indigenous doctors in Australia (0.2% of the total medical workforce). Hence the new agreement to monitor and support  medical students aims to focus on education, history, and special needs, to close the gap in graduate outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous students.

Associate Professor O’Mara says that to maintain parity, Australia needs another 1,200 Torres Strait Islander doctors.



Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/more-indigenous-medical-students-create-milestone-20120820-24ipi.html#ixzz248nBlO21



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MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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