New regional rural doctor training for Whakatane

University of Auckland - 18 January 2017

New regional rural doctor training for Whakatane

The first fifth year medical students in a new Regional-Rural Programme will soon be working at Whakatane Hospital and in local GP rooms.

On Monday (23 January), the University of Auckland and the Bay of Plenty District Health Board will launch the programme with a joint powhiri/pohiri at the hospital.

Guests at the powhiri will include East Coast MP, the Hon Anne Tolley, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon, and the Dean of the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, Professor John Fraser.

They will join Bay of Plenty District Health Board Chairperson, Sally Webb and CEO Helen Mason, as well as local iwi and other dignitaries, to welcome the first group of 18 students to Whakatane. There will also be a group of the University’s senior medical teaching staff in attendance.

In recent years, University of Auckland students have taken part in a six week rural health immersion programme based at Whakatane Hospital, but this is the first year of the new Regional-Rural Programme where Auckland students will spend nearly three months at Whakatane Hospital and the balance of the year at Tauranga Hospital’s Bay of Plenty clinical school.

There will be a total of 58 medical students from the University in the Bay of Plenty this year with 24 fourth year, 18 fifth year and 16 sixth year students.

This is the first time the Bay of Plenty DHB has had medical students from all three clinical training years for the full academic year.

The fifth year medical students at Whakatane will be doing hospital based and general practice based placements.

For the University, this is the second Regional-Rural programme – the first was the successful Pukawakawa programme that is based at the Northland DHB and includes training for medical students at Whangarei Hospital and rural hospitals around that region.

“The expansion of our Regional-Rural programme into the Bay of Plenty demonstrates our commitment to giving our medical students training in the regions and rural areas with many returning to those areas later on,” says the Dean of the Medical School, Professor Fraser.

The Head of BOP Clinical School at Tauranga Hospital, Professor Peter Gilling, says the new regional and rural programme will be significant as it will be the first year that Whakatane Hospital will have a group of fifth year medical students present as part of their academic year.

“The clinical teaching staff at Whakatane hospital are excited at the prospect of having a group of fifth year medical students,” he says. “This enables the students to have a stronger bond with the workforce, the community and patients.

“Experience suggests that some of the students will return to the area and other rural regions later on as graduate doctors and this will enhance the medical workforce in the Bay of Plenty and rural New Zealand.”

ENDS

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