Bathurst Clinical School

Located a mere 200km inland from Sydney on the banks of the Macquarie River, Bathurst is the home of the Wiradjuri people and is the site of Australia's oldest inland European settlement with a current estimated population of just over 42,000 people.

Bathurst is a well renowned educational centre and is rich in cultural heritage, art, sporting and tourism facilities. Bathurst offers a refreshing and vibrant lifestyle for its residents.

Bathurst Health Service is a level C1 facility which functions as a Base Hospital within a large and growing regional centre. Shortly after the founding of Bathurst in 1815 the first hospital was built and established in 1824. It has since grown considerably into a 101 bed acute Rural Hospital located on the eastern border of the Western NSW local Health district.

Services within the hospital include:

• Allied health
• Ambulatory Care
• Coronary Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Intensive Care
• Medicine
• Mental Health
• Obstetrics & Gynaecology
• Oncology
• Paediatrics
• Pathology
• Radiology
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Surgery

Medical students in Bathurst will rotate through a number of community-based and hospital-based clinical placements. All students will undertake a term in rural General Practice within one of the nine local general practices we have engaged locally across the towns of Bathurst, Oberon and Blayney. Likewise, all Bathurst Students will undertake a term in Indigenous medicine at the nearby Orange Aboriginal Health Service. Within the Hospital, students will rotate through a number of placements which may include surgery, medicine, paediatrics, oncology, mental health and critical care depending on rotation completed before their rural term.

Student accommodation is provided in the Ben and Elizabeth Chifley cottages in Howick Street, Bathurst. These are two six bedroom fully furnished cottages opposite the Bathurst hospital and these are currently provided at a subsidised rate per student.

The majority of our rural students value the nature of the longitudinal placement which allows them to follow the patient journey from the community, through to the hospital and back again. Our student feedback is generally positive, as per the following testimonial from one of our previous students.

"Coming from a background of being a high school leaver and someone who has never moved out on my own, I was daunted but at the same time curious about rural medicine.

I need not have worried as the support here is incredible. Bathurst has given me a unique opportunity to challenge myself. I have had exposure to a side of medicine and a lifestyle that I would never have experienced if I hadn't taken the chance.

The experience has been invaluable to me and I cannot express how much I enjoyed it. But don't take my word for it, come and see it for yourself!"

The rural program is under the leadership of Professor Ross Wilson. Funded through the Australian government's Rural Clinical Training Support (RCTS) program, the Western Sydney University Rural Program has a mandate to address health workforce shortages, primarily in rural and regional NSW. The cornerstone of our program's direction is the provision of strong clinical placements in the two large regional centres of Bathurst and Lismore, a research program with a focus on rural workforce issues and rural health issues and a view to vertical training opportunities, particularly within Rural Government pathways.

The students based in Bathurst complete their Community Research Project in two week blocks with the support of onsite supervisors. Students will be encouraged to explore issues of disadvantage as it might apply to healthcare within a rural community.

The Bathurst research team has built a strong foundation for research with a growing number of staff working on clinical, population health and health service projects.

Published Manuscripts

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