The Rural Portfolio aims to improve health outcomes for rural and remote communities in Queensland as well as encourage health students to consider a career in rural health. We do this by running fundraising events for our rural charity partners, seminar and information nights, rural clinical skills trips, rural high school visits, providing bush bursaries for rural summer placements, subsidising rural conferences such as RDAQ for health students and facilitating students to immerse themselves in rural health careers through the Longlook program.

Collaboration

Hope4Health’s Rural Portfolio collaborates closely with rural health clubs from other Queensland universities who share a common vision. These include BUSHFIRE (Bond University), RHINO (James Cook University) and TROHPIQ (University of Queensland). In addition, Hope4Health is part of National Rural Health Students’ Network (NRHSN).

NRHSN is a multidisciplinary health network comprising of 27 Rural Health Clubs (RHCs) located at Universities around Australia, in every State and Territory. The NRHSN covers medical, nursing and allied health courses, and comprises a member base of more than 9,000 students from the Rural Health Clubs.

The activities of our Rural Portfolio are supported by a number of rural organisations for health professionals. These include;

  • Health Workforce Queensland (HWQ) – a not-for-profit rural workforce agency, funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. HWQ’s role is to facilitate the recruitment, retention and quality of general medical practitioners (GPs) and primary health care teams in rural and remote Queensland communities.
  • Rural Doctors’ Association of Queensland (RDAQ) – the representative body for rural doctors practicing in Queensland. RDAQ is proactive in promoting the merits of rural medicine and offer support for rural trips and student registrations to their annual conference.
  • Rural Medical Education Australia (RMEA) – offers regional, rural and remote training opportunities in both General Practice and regional hospital settings. RMEA supports training towards both RACGP and ACRRM Fellowships and recognises the special needs of Overseas Trained Doctors, Australian Defence Force Registrars and Queensland Health’s Rural Generalists and Bonded Scholars.