Gippsland’s first home grown medical students begin their journey to becoming rural doctors

The first two ‘home grown’ medical students have just begun their journey to becoming rural doctors thanks to a Monash University and Federation University program.

The Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Gippsland Partnership Program) provides a pathway for local students to gain entry into the graduate medical degree at Monash University, providing a pipeline of locally raised and educated future Gippsland doctors.

Annalise Gafa and Henry Bird have now both started the first year of their Monash medical degree in Churchill, after graduating from the Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Gippsland Partnership Program) in 2024.

Annalise is from Traralgon and grew up in the region. She was keen to stay rurally for her university studies and she very happily applied for the Gippsland Partnership Program when she was in her final year at Lavalla Catholic College. “I didn’t want to jump straight into medicine, because it’s such a full-on degree, so I chose the Biomed Sci degree,” she said.

“It allowed me to stay at home, keep playing netball and I did courses such as anatomy and pathophysiology which will be so helpful for medicine. I feel so prepared.”

Annelise intends to stay in the region, already eyeing placements in anaesthesia, paediatrics or obstetrics, “all of which I can do at Latrobe Regional Health.” And she intends to remain a rural doctor after graduation.

Henry Bird is also a first-year medical student also studying with Annalise. He grew up in Wonthaggi, and didn’t have the marks to get into medicine when he finished VCE, so applied for the Gippsland Partnership Program. “It was perfect for me, and its helped me in being prepared for the medical degree I’ve just started,” he said, adding that he intends to work as a rural doctor once he has graduated.

The Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Gippsland Partnership Program) was established as a partnership by Federation University and Monash University in 2021, with the first intake of students commencing in 2022.

The course is taught at Federation University's Gippsland campus, with some units taught at Monash University's Clayton campus. There are five places available each year and the course is only open to students from the Gippsland region.

Students in the Bachelor of Biomedical Science (Gippsland Partnership Program) who meet the entry requirements are eligible to apply for graduate entry medicine at Monash in the final year of their degree.

Students from a rural area and complete long-term placements in a rural area are more likely to practice medicine in a rural area. A 2023 recent study from last year published in the British Medical Journal which surveyed over 2800 University of Queensland medical students between 2011 and 2021, found that those who did two years of training in a regional area were seven times more likely to choose to work in regional Australia, compared to their colleagues who neither had extended clinical placements nor any post-degree training in a rural area. Even those medical students who did a 12-week rural placement were three times more likely to choose to live outside a major city.

According to Professor Shane Bullock, Monash Rural Health’s Head of School, the course was established to “provide students from Gippsland with a potential pathway to studying medicine at Monash and the opportunity to complete most of their studies close to home in Gippsland, and we can see from the Henry and Annalise that its absolutely doing everything we wanted this course to do, to provide a way for local students to study medicine, with the hope they stay on in the area once they graduate.”

To learn more about the program, click here.