Suzannah Bownes1, Thomas Goubar1,2, Joseph Suttie1,2
Wagga Wagga Base Hospital, Wagga Wagga, 2650, NSW, Australia
University of New South Wales, Rural Clinical School, Wagga Wagga, 2650
Assistants in medicine (AIM) programs are an innovative solution to rural workforce shortages. The position was offered to final year medical students as part of the COVID-19 surge workforce in an attempt to supplement critical healthcare worker shortages. An added benefit of the AIM program is that it supports the transition from medical student to internship. Rural medical workforce shortages have long been documented, however strategies to retain doctors fail to relieve strain on the workforce. A key indicator for rural medical workforce retention is whether a student has been exposed to high quality clinical placements in rural settings. This study reports the experiences of medical students participating in an AIM program at a large regional referral centre. The program, titled “AIM Higher”, included career workshops, clinical education sessions and leadership skills development. Survey data was collected pre- and post-participation in the AIM program. Kendall tau-b correlation was run to determine the relationship of ordinal Likert scale data pre- and post- participation. There were sixteen final year medical students participating in the program, with a 75% survey response rate for pre- and 62.5% for post-participation surveys. There was strong positive correlation between participation and confidence to begin internship (p < 0.05), confidence communicating with senior colleagues (p < 0.05) and confidence in assessing unwell patients (p < 0.05). All respondents expressed that the AIM program helped prepare them for internship and that they would recommend it to other medical students. The majority of feedback on the program focussed on a need for clarifying the scope of the AIM role within the medical team and difficulties with access to electronic medical records. AIM programs are an effective means to relieve pressure on the JMO workforce in a rural setting. Furthermore, they provide high quality and engaging clinical experiences for medical students which has the potential to improve retention rates of the rural medical workforce. We conclude that AIM programs are an effective means to future proof the rural workforce.