Renal specialist Dr Colin McClintock recently took a swipe at ‘pompous, bow tie-wearing’, city-centric specialists when he appeared at a NSW Government inquiry.

His lashing created a few headlines, and angered some doctors but also resonated with many others.

But his main frustrations were with specialist training committees refusing to accredit training positions in rural and regional hospitals, like his own in Dubbo.

Here he discusses the feedback, the challenges and the fixes to get those city-loving doctors to try life in the bush — and also whether the PhDs doctors are expected to churn out to forge a career are of any value.