Career planning resources

For each stage in planning your career in medicine, there are resources that can help.

Secondary students

Youthrive Victoria

Youthrive wants all young rural people to have great lives and strengthen rural communities. Youthrive offers  scholarships for Year 12 students who are planning to go to university and demonstrate a commitment to contributing to a strong, just and sustainable rural and regional Victoria. The scholarships are valued up to $10,000 per year for three years plus transition and career mentoring and leadership development opportunities.

Current medical students

Rural and regional scholarships

The Rural and Regional Enterprise Scholarships Program supports students with the costs of studying at university or at a vocational education and training institution. The scholarships are valued at up to $18,000 and are available to students studying for six months full-time up to 8 years part-time.

Rural medical scholarships

The VRMS Scheme supports career pathways to rural medical practice and assists rural and regional health services to attract, employ and retain medical graduates. The scheme supports medical students by providing financial assistance towards living and tertiary expenses The scheme is administered by Postgraduate Medical Council of Victoria on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services. Scholarships valued at $20,000 each are available to final year medical students in Victoria. Scholarship recipients are required to commit to two-years return service (within three years of graduating).

Support for bonded medical students

Interns and junior medical officers

The regional training hubs are gradually developing websites. See the Goulburn Valley Regional Training Hub (University of Melbourne) for details of training opportunities in north-east Victoria.

Victorian Doctors Health Program

VDHP is a free, confidential service for doctors and medical students who have health concerns such as stress, mental health, substance use problems, and any other health issues. Sensitive to the needs of doctors and medical students, VDHP are a non-judgmental service working with doctors/medical students' problems and works to find solutions. Advice is also provided to anyone who is concerned about a doctor or medical student. This includes family, friends, colleagues, university staff and clinical staff.

Victorian Medical Benevolent Association

The VMBA provides short term financial support in a time of crisis/need to medical practitioners, their immediate family and medical students in their final year who reside or practice in Victoria . Requests for assistance can be made by: individuals; family members, a medical colleague, the Victorian Doctor Health Program and/or AMA.  Requests are made to the VMBA's Client Manager Diana Cooper - go to www.vmba.org.au The VMBA is independent of all government and regulatory organisations.

Medical Professional Development

The MPD program supports the ongoing professional development and medical education of medical practitioners in rural and regional Victoria and aims to encourage trainee doctors to complete regional placements by providing access to professional development subsidies. Funding is valued at $3,000 per applicant per financial year.

These are available for medical practitioners in MMM 2-7 who are:

  • Fellowed general practitioners
  • international medical graduates
  • Australian medical graduate GPs
  • registrars in a GP training program or
  • interns, required to complete a minimum 13 week rural community placement.

Education support grants

RWAV provides education grants to eligible medical practitioners, working in an in rural Victoria. The grants are designed to provide financial assistance to health professionals so they can access relevant education and up-skilling opportunities to meet community need. Applicants must work as a clinician in a private or public health practice that offers primary, continuing comprehensive whole person care for individuals,families and communities in a community setting outside of a hospital or emergency care centre.

General Practitioners (GPs) can also use the grant to access education and resources to facilitate preparation towards gaining Fellowship of either RACGP or ACRRM.

The Australian Doctor’s Spouse Network

The Australian Doctor's Spouse Netowrk (ADSN) is a not-for-profit group run by spouses of doctors. It aims to provide a platform for medical and surgical spouses around Australia to connect for support, advice and social networking. The primary focus of ADSN is to help spouses through the years of their partners training, but it welcomes spouses of medical students through to spouses of senior consultants that may seek support, advice and friendship.

ADSN realises there is a need in rural and remote areas to support medical families, understanding they can be the most isolated areas.  We hope, along with our online chat group support, we can gather momentum to support spouses in rural areas with local information welcome packs and gatherings for new medical families to meet local families to make the move to a rural area smoother.We entirely rely on volunteers. If you are in a rural area and would like to get involved, please get in contact with ADSN. We would love to hear from you and see what we can generate together.

Supervisors

And if you are a supervisor or working to become one, there are also helpful resources to develop your skills.