Why Aren't More Overseas-trained Doctors Working Asgps in Rural Nsw?: a Study of the Structural and Political Barrierspreventing Permanent Resident ... from Working As Gps in Rural New South Wales

This book explores the barriers that permanentresident overseas-trained doctors (PROTDs) believeare preventing them from working as generalpractitioners in rural New South Wales. Australia asa whole, and NSW in particular, has a serious medicalworkforce shortage. Yet despite the shortages, alarge number of PROTDs living in NSW are not in themedical workforce. This book investigates thedifficulties that PROTDs have faced in securing andmaintaining medical registration to work in generalpractice in rural NSW. This study focusesspecifically on overseas-trained doctors (OTDs) fromnon-English speaking backgrounds who are permanentresidents of Australia or Australian citizens, andmigrated to Australia for reasons other thanemployment. The PROTDs under discussion were grantedpermanent Australian residency independent of theirmedical qualifications and with no guarantees ofemployment. The majority of these PROTDs would havemigrated to Australia before 1997, when immigrationbecame more difficult, and would therefore havearrived at a time when OTDs were not particularlywelcome in Australia.