Tasmanian medical graduates are being forced interstate to find work due to a shortage of local intern training places, the Australian Medical Students' Association (AMSA) said today.

In 2008, 83 graduates competed for a total of 58 local intern jobs, forcing the remaining graduates to seek work interstate. The number of graduates is projected to increase to 127 by 2012.

AMSA President Michael Bonning said that the Tasmanian government had failed both medical graduates and the community at large.

"A significant investment of local resources is required to train each Tasmanian medical student. Forcing students to then leave the state to find work is to the detriment of the Tasmanian Health Service and inconsistent with community expectations," Mr Bonning said.

"Given the general doctor shortage in Tasmania, the government should be doing everything in its power to retain medical graduates to boost the ailing health system," he said.

The imperative to provide these intern jobs will become even more important as other states graduate increasingly larger cohorts of doctors.

"Nearly every other state has guaranteed intern places for local graduates until 2012, but there are no such guarantees for interstate graduates, such as those forced out of Tasmania," Mr Bonning said.

"Tasmania is well behind the eight - ball on this issue. It must be addressed before Tasmanian graduates find themselves with nowhere to work upon graduation," he said.

AMSA President Michael Bonning joins 350 medical students, junior doctors and stakeholders in medical education at the 13th National Prevocational Forum, held in Tasmania from the 9th to the 12th of November. The Forum addresses the challenge of ensuring quantity and quality of prevocational training for medical graduates.

Carly Fox
AMSA Public Relations Officer
AMSA