Curtin University has responded to comments critical of its plans to establish a medical school and will launch its community awareness campaign this weekend.<\/p>\n
Professor Jill Downie, Pro-Vice Chancellor Health Sciences at Curtin, said that the University currently educates more health professionals than any other WA university and is very experienced in clinical education and training. It also teaches much of the first two years of the University of Notre Dame\u2019s medical degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Department of Health has predicted WA\u2019s expected population growth will lead to a 32 per cent increase in hospital activity over the next decade and will be matched by a 30 per cent increase in hospital beds,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are also aware of a large number of doctors willing to work as clinical supervisors, especially in community and general practice based settings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese factors will create the necessary clinical placements for Curtin medical students, even without factoring in an expected large increase in private hospital beds over the coming decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Downie also dismissed claims that the quality of clinical training would be jeopardised by increases in the number of students.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe quality of medical education in Australia is governed by an independent accreditation body, the Australian Medical Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll graduates from Curtin would be required to meet these standards.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also said that the model of education Curtin was developing would particularly focus on the management of chronic diseases, issues relating to ageing, mental health, community and regional medicine and the need to work interprofessionally with other health experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cCurtin\u2019s experience in regional education has shown that exposure to country areas increases the likelihood of graduates choosing to live outside of the metropolitan area, and we believe this approach will develop doctors willing and able to work regionally.\u201d<\/p>\n
Professor Downie also said Curtin\u2019s first medical graduates would be entering the workforce in 2019, ideally timed to meet the demand identified by the WA Government.<\/p>\n
Media contact: <\/strong><\/p>\n Julia Nicol, Director of PR, Curtin University, 089 266 7711, 0409202134, j.k.nicol@curtin.edu.au<\/p>\n \u00a0Web: http:\/\/curtin.edu.au<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Curtin University has responded to comments critical of its plans to establish a medical school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4275,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-17875","media-release","type-media-release","status-publish","hentry","category-campus-and-global-community"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"","content":"","image":false},"related_courses":false,"credits":{"author":"","photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}}},"featured_image":false,"author_meta":{"first_name":"Curtin","last_name":"University","display_name":"Curtin University"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/media-release"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media-release\/17875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17875"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=17875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}