Clinical supervision in rural Australia: challenges and opportunities

There is an urgent need to build clinical supervision capacity to support the rural medical workforce

Many of the pieces of the rural workforce puzzle are in place. There is good evidence around selecting the right people, teaching them the right things in the right places and ensuring the quality of rural placements. Positive outcomes from such approaches are well documented.1 Governments have invested in infrastructure and education, developing many training pathways.2 The missing piece, which needs urgent attention, is clinical supervision and training capacity. The rapid growth in trainee numbers has not been accompanied by growth in supervisory capacity. Failure to address the reduced supervision capacity will risk the success of this investment, with adverse outcomes for trainees, communities and the future workforce. The recent statement from the Australian Medical Association, Building capacity for clinical supervision in the medical workforce 2017, calls for “increased investment in supervision capacity and supporting infrastructure”.1