医学生Joshua Chan近日撰文指出，澳大利亚政府最近宣布的健康专业学生带薪实习计划将医学生排除在外，这一政策差异正在加剧医学教育中的经济壁垒[1]。根据该计划，其他十个卫生专业的学生将获得约每周338澳元的实习补助，而医学生仍需完成2000至4000小时的无薪临床实习[1]。
面对悉尼中位租金每周824澳元的现实，医学生在完成无薪实习期间承受着巨大的经济压力[1]。这种制度结构性地排斥来自低社会经济地位的学生，导致他们在学业中的流失率居高不下[1]。其中，原住民医学生的处境尤为严峻，流失率高达45%，尽管他们占入学者的4.2%，毕业生中的比例却仅为2.3%[1]。
Chan指出，这一现象的长期后果直接影响澳大利亚的医疗服务结构[1]。仅有15.6%的医学生表示将从事全科医疗工作，而来自低社会经济阶层的医学生后来在弱势地区执业的可能性是平均水平的两倍[1]。鉴于政府计划到2028年每年培训2000名全科医生的目标，Chan建议将临床医学生纳入Commonwealth Prac Payment计划，以确保医学专业的选拔不再因家庭经济能力而产生偏差[1]。
Australian medical student Joshua Chan has raised alarm over a structural inequity in professional training, warning that the exclusion of medical students from a newly announced government-funded paid internship program threatens to perpetuate socioeconomic barriers in medical education.[1]
Medical students are required to complete between 2,000 and 4,000 hours of unpaid clinical practice, often facing unpredictable schedules while grappling with substantial living costs.[1] In contrast, the government has recently launched a paid internship initiative providing approximately AU$338 per week to students in ten other health professions, yet medical students remain ineligible.[1] This disparity is particularly acute in cities like Sydney, where median weekly rent stands at AU$824—a sum that consumes roughly one-third of many tenants' recorded income.[1]
Chan argues that this policy architecture systematically disadvantages students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, contributing to alarming attrition rates within vulnerable cohorts. Indigenous medical students face a dropout rate as high as 45 percent, despite comprising only 4.2 percent of medical school enrollments, while accounting for just 2.3 percent of graduates.[1] The consequences extend beyond immediate access: only 15.6 percent of medical graduates express an intention to pursue general practice.[1] Additionally, students from disadvantaged backgrounds are twice as likely as their peers to eventually work in underserved areas.[1]
Given the government's stated objective to train 2,000 additional general practitioners annually by 2028, Chan contends that excluding medical students from the Commonwealth Practitioner Payment scheme undermines this goal.[1] He proposes extending the paid internship program to clinical medical students as a means of broadening opportunity and strengthening the rural and remote healthcare workforce pipeline.[1]