eMJA: Indigenous medical workforce development: current status and future directions

Capacity to Care — Editorial

Indigenous medical workforce development: current status and future directions

Ian P S Anderson, Shaun C Ewen and Debra A Knoche

MJA 2009; 190 (10): 580-581

Both more Indigenous doctors — for the sociocultural capabilities they bring — and better sociocultural education of all medical students will be needed to “close the gap”

When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and representatives of Australian health leadership signed a statement of intent to close the Indigenous health gap by 2030, they committed to putting in place by 2018 the primary health services and other health infrastructure necessary to achieve this goal.1 Although health service development has been key to the national policy agenda in Indigenous health since the National Aboriginal Health Strategy in 1989, a high level commitment to workforce development was not in place until the Australian Health Ministers’ Advisory Council endorsed the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Workforce National Strategic Framework in 2002.2 This priority was subsequently reinforced when the National Indigenous Health Equality Council was established in 2008 — with a significant focus on workforce strategy.3

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