The Federal Government should reward universities that address community needs and produce rural doctors with more funded medical student places, the AMA has told the Federal Government.

AMA president Professor Steve Robson says Australia has doubled its domestic medical graduates over 13 years — from 1544 in 2007 to 3066 in 2020 — yet “the current focus on training more doctors and hoping they will end up where they are needed is not working”.

The AMA’s new position statement on workforce supply calls for an independent agency to track and predict workforce holes, plus tighter control of Commonwealth-supported places (CSPs), linking them to medical schools’ outcomes and where their graduates practise.

Tisshapaa Sivagnanan, president of the Australian Medical Students’ Association (AMSA), said CSPs should serve a “holistic vision” even if this impacted where students could study.