Medical manpower: the continuing crisis

Successive governments have tried to control the oversupply of doctors in Australia by restricting the entry of migrant doctors. Their efforts have not succeeded. Current policy is to insist that all new GPs take out postgraduate qualifications before practising (and to limit the number of postgraduate places to 400 p.a.). Pressure is also being applied to medical schools to limit undergraduate enrolments. The reasons for the inability to control overseas trained doctor numbers and the merits of the Government's current policies are explored. Copyright. Monash University and the author/s