Healthy Futures Report - LIME Network

LITERATURE REVIEWUniversity of British ColumbiaThe University of British Columbia (UBC) 79allocated 5% of its 128 medical seats forAboriginal students in 2004 and havedeveloped a number of recruitment strategiesand initiatives. Hayley, (2003), reports on astudy conducted by a group of first-year andsecond-year medical students at UBC. 80 Thisstudy found a lack of consistency throughoutthe country in how medical schools developedpolicies and initiatives to recruit and supportAboriginal people. On completion of thestudy the group committed themselves toproviding support to other Aboriginal medicalstudents. The group also developed arecruitment program that encouragedAboriginal high school students to considerhealth care as a career, including:●●●●Aboriginal medical students visiting highschools and talking to Aboriginalstudents;developing posters highlighting the needfor Aboriginal physicians;facilitating a network for high schoolstudents to obtain information aboutapplying to study medicine;linking Aboriginal students withAboriginal medical students andphysicians, thereby providing supportprior to entering medical school; and● a proactive associate Deans of admissionspolicy committeeUBC will also implement a program thatprovides support to Aboriginal students andaddresses the concerns of both theAboriginal community and the medicalschool. The same academic standards applyto Aboriginal people as to other students.However they are only required to achieve50% of the standard criteria for admission.The other half relates to community service,involvement in health care, the approach tothe practice of medicine, letters of referenceand so on.A number of Canadian universities have alsoembedded Aboriginal perspectives into theircurricula. Funding has been made availablefor Aboriginal students, and the need forgreater collaboration with Aboriginalcommunities in the region of medicalschools has also been acknowledged. 813.6 Australian Indigenous doctorand medical student numbersAccording to the AIHW, 2003, there were 90Indigenous Australian doctors compared to48 119 registered doctors in Australia overallin 2001. 82 This indicates that Indigenousdoctors account for 0.18% of the medicalprofession, despite 2.4% of the Australianpopulation being Indigenous. 83DEST data indicates that 102 Indigenousstudents were enrolled in medicine in 2003.CDAMS data 84 indicates that 9233 domesticand international students are currentlyenrolled in medicine in Australia overall.These figures indicate that Indigenous medicalstudents still only make up 1.1% of themedical student population.The AMA commissioned Access Economics 85to undertake a study on the Indigenous healthworkforce in 2004. The Australian MedicalAssociation (AMA) 2004 Discussion PaperHealing Hands – Healing Hands: Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander WorkforceRequirements,... the AMA believes that to improve thehealth of Aboriginal peoples and TorresStrait Islanders it is critical to increase theproportional representation of this groupemployed within the general healthworkforce. To increase the proportion ofAboriginal peoples and Torres StraitIslanders working as health professionals tonon-Indigenous levels 928 doctors ... need tobe trained.According to the AMA, to fill the gap in 10entry years, fifty Indigenous students wouldneed to enrol in medical schools acrossAustralia each year for the next four years andthen one hundred would need to enrol eachyear after that. This would mean that eachmedical school in Australia would need toenrol three Indigenous students each year forthe first four years and seven each year afterthat. 8617