The New Zealand Rural General Practice Network is engaged and encourages a rural student mentor scheme as well as providing locum recruitment. It often works with "international medical graduates" who fill many of the rural positions, typically for six months to two years. More students would just worsen this bottleneck, a situation which alarms the New Zealand Medical Students Association. He helped found the University of Otago Te Waipounamu Rural Health Unit for rural doctor education, founded the Matagouri Club for undergraduate students with an interest in rural medicine and developed the first one-year Rural Medical Immersion Programme for medical students. It is, however, difficult to see their proposal for another medical school doing much to solve this matter.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 20, 2016 17:14 UTC