Rural Origin Student Representation in Entry to Practice Health Courses at UTAS: 2011-2020

Background: The Commonwealth Government Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training (RHMT) Program aims to increase the number of domestic rural origin students studying medicine, nursing, and allied health to help build sustainable rural health workforce. Little is known about Tasmanian rural origin student representation in these courses at UTAS.

Methods: UTAS student admission and graduation data for health courses between 2011 and 2020 were interrogated. Data was extracted from each student's first course record, including their residential location at the time of application. This was then coded using the Modified Monash Model (MMM) to determine students who were of 'rural origin' (MM categories 3-7). Data were analysed in STATA.

Findings: Between 2011 and 2020, 7516 domestic Tasmanian students were offered course admission into health courses at UTAS. Of these, 77.4% were regional (MM2) and 22.6% were rural origin (MM3-7) students. Around half (51.1%) of all students were studying nursing. Over this same period, a total of 5086 domestic Tasmanian students graduated. Whilst course completion rates tended to decease as remoteness increased, higher completion rates were recorded for rural origin students admitted to courses in psychology, medicine and pharmacy.

Conclusions: Rural origin students are admitted to a range of health courses and many complete. Additional measures could be taken to recruit a greater number of rural origin students, to support them to successfully complete their course and to encourage them to return to rural areas to enter the health workforce as graduates.