Rural, regional and remote Australian communities continue to suffer higher mortality and poorer access to healthcare compared with those residing in metropolitan centres. Part of this can be explained by the significant shortage of skilled clinicians, with the ratio of medical specialists to population being up to four times higher in the cities compared with remote areas. Over recent years, there has been an increase in the number of Fellows of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (FACEMs) working in regional areas. However, the FACEM training programme lacks prioritisation of the nuances of regional and rural emergency medicine (EM), producing new FACEMs preferentially suited to metropolitan EM practice and subsequently encountering significant challenges when lack of specialist positions compels them to work in regional sites. The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) needs to consider strategies that not only ensure it is producing excellent generalist emergency physicians but also fulfilling its obligation to the regional communities those physicians serve.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	Emergency medicine, training, rural, regional, remote communities, Australia
Research Division:	Biomedical and Clinical Sciences
Research Group:	Clinical sciences
Research Field:	Emergency medicine
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in the health sciences
UTAS Author:	Tran, V (Dr Viet Tran)
ID Code:	151354
Year Published:	2019
Deposited By:	Medicine
Deposited On:	2022-07-27
Last Modified:	2022-09-19
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