Maintaining surgical standards beyond the city in Australia

Many Australians, by choice or necessity, live and work in rural Australia. In the past broadly trained general surgeons and appropriately trained general practitioner (GP) surgeons provided much of the surgical management. Recently very few rural GPs have been trained in surgery and there is a shortage of specialist surgeons in many rural parts of Australia. Outreach surgery can assist in the provision of some surgical services but it is not as effective as an on-site surgical presence. The challenge for the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Rural Surgical Training Programme is to provide an ongoing supply of well-trained surgeons in general surgery and the other specialties to provide adequate surgical services to rural Australians. This will be best achieved by having adequate numbers of surgeons resident in rural areas with appropriate outreach specialist services, and training and support of the procedural GPs in the smaller centres.