There is a well documented shortage of primary care practitioners in regional and rural Australia. While Australia has introduced many initiatives to support the healthcare workforce, the generalist workforce model in rural and regional Australia is in desperate need of reform and very few medical graduates express a desire to become GPs or work rurally.

Part of our role as medical educators is to raise awareness of these issues, and consider ways in whcih we can influence stakeholders. To this end I organised a panel event at the UNSW Rural Clinical Campus, Port Macquarie featuring regional clinicians and medical students, and visiting academic Professor Karen Hauer, Associate Dean for Competency Assessment and Professional Standards and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

In addition to this, I organised a round table event with senior faculty members (Professors Torda and Kennedy), final year students and junior medical officers to facilitate discussion of how UNSW can support students to embrace a generalist pathway.