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The South Australian town of Kimba, halfway between Perth and Sydney on the Eyre Highway, spent $1 million renovating its medical centre and ran a viral advertising campaign on social media to attract a doctor to town, but it still doesn’t have a full-time GP.

Another country town in northern NSW spent three years trying to attract a GP. They finally secured one, but he only lasted 11 months.

Fuelling the crisis, a clinical workshop at the GP24 conference in Perth was told, are the closures of 60 GP practices and a shortage of GPs, because not enough medical students are following that career pathway.

“The GP rural crisis is a very complex issue,” Dr Jill Benson, a GP in urban, rural and remote areas for 45 years, explained.

“We need to look at the whole pipeline. We have to get students interested, registrars interested.”

Dr Benson is part of the RACGP Training Pipeline and Remote Supervision Team that is grappling with the problem and looking for solutions.

“We collected a fantastic array of different opinions that we’re going to work through,” she said.

National Rural Health Commissioner Professor Jenny May suggested that a more flexible approach to the way rural GPs practise was needed, especially in relation to the number of hours they work because they are “married to the community with the long-suffering family that stands alongside”.

“It’s not how young people want to practise,” she said, adding that expecting a doctor to spend 20 years in a rural community was no longer realistic. “Let’s be happy with five,” she said.

Associate Professor Susan Wearne, a senior medical adviser at the federal Department of Health’s Health Workforce Division, suggested a more generalist approach in medical training.

“And we need more placements in the community as a GP throughout medical school, particularly early on,” she said.

Aboriginal community-controlled medical centres in the Kimberley could be a model, according to Associate Professor Lawrie McArthur, who is also part of the Training Pipeline team. He suggested rural towns could set up not-for-profit entities to run medical practices and put the profits back into the community.

To address the problem of finding doctors, the Royal Flying Doctor Service in Port Augusta, SA, is offering flexible full-time, part-time or casual contracts.

“The full-time residential model was no longer working for us,” RFDS clinical director Dr Amanda Bethell explained.

The program has attracted local and interstate doctors to join the RFDS team part-time, flying in or driving in for one or two weeks at a time.

“(Though) It can cause a loss of continuity of care, and finding suitable accommodation can be difficult,” Dr Bethell said.

Young Perth doctor Phoebe Blaxill, who did her elective in rural Queensland, said appropriate financial support and community engagement were important for rural placements.

“I was allocated a community contact, who even took me camping,” the Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital intern said.

Training Pipeline team member Dr Tim Linton said safe and effective remote supervision of registrar training was a key issue.

“We need supervisors ready for the adventure,” Dr Linton said.

“It can all be done from home, or the back of a boat, wherever you are.

“It would suit GPs looking at retirement, or maternity leave.

“If you’re interested, we’d love to have a chat”.