Another problem is we see entry to medical school as a prize in a competition in a meritocracy. Entry to medical school lets to a guarantee of high income and very secure employment in an increasing insecure world, so that the upper-middle class will fight anything that comes between it and good outcomes for their children.

Hence we have bizarrely high year 12 cutoff far in excess of any needs to be a successful doctor, to the detriment of other skills that are difficult to assess in an 18 year old anyway. We chose medical school entrants on the basis of passing school exams and then wonder why the general population complains of medical arrogance. In general selection based on those who thrive in reaching the top 1% of competitive exams are going to be biased against people who would appreciate a rural lifestyle. They won't necessarily be the brightest people either.

Entry to tax-payer subsided medical school should be granted on the basis of serving the needs of all sections of the community, not the on the basis of the rights of the individual or the prerequisite of those who can afford private schools.

The problem is complex as postgraduate skill development should correctly be considered. Poorly trained doctors in regional centres are not a preferred outcome.

Even so, issuing fresh Certificates of Practice held by say, local councils, for use in a proscribed region may assist.

Then, as Medicine is community subsidised, a requirement for five (5) years regional experience or three (3) years in remote communities might be used to reduce the HECS debt.

Overall we need the canadian attitude to income from medicine rather than the US attitude of "rip off the patients".

This is a wider issue for country people than simply attracting doctors, but in all areas of regional, rural and remote Australia with the exception perhaps of agricultural extension.

Anthropology and the Social Sciences, Regional Planning, Social Work and Clinical Practice are all predicated these days on imported critical theory rather than analysis of local field data derived from research carried out here in Australia.

To make any progress one must be 'theoretically informed' on the untrue and misdirected assumption that country people don't know their theory, while I argue repeatedly that too much reliance on theory alone by campus bound academics without reference to real longitudinal field research but with what the text book says, what the prestigious international theorist says, is very much the problem.

For the rest of it, there are simply not enough country people in the professions generally, and those who are become attracted to the cities for a whole range of reasons.

When they get there study as discussed already is inevitably campus-based, with minimal if any practical, field-based study, even with the large hospitals associated with medical schools where their students do their practicum.

Australian intellectual life is now globally urbanised, borroed from overseas, an enormous shift away from the post-WWII period when nearly 60% of Australians lived in country areas and we had to sort things out ourselves.

The shift away from urban thinking back to rural represents a profound culture shock. In Anthropology and Field Ethnography in particular this phenomenon is intimately familiar and compelling.

It remains astonishing to me, even after all these years of speaking and writing about the issues being faced, carrying out field research, coming back to model and theorise in ways city people can assimilate, that we are still not being asked to contribute to the debate in an informed and effective manner.

The best I've ever been complimented was in a remark once, "This bloke's a real bushie," said somewhat dismissively at the time, in response to their obvious confusion over 'where I was coming from', but which I took myself as an honour and privilege.

Even in recognising the reality, that country people, indigenous people, anyone raised close to the land have their own ways of thinking and doing things, it yet appears a mystery to the mainstream intellectual what it is.

Even with two Honours degrees in Anthropology and in Letters, it still makes no difference to them, they still don't get it. You're simply 'on another planet'.

That's the problem. There is nothing extra money can do to buy rural doctors and other professionals, they have to be raised there, enculturated to the different realities they have inevitably to face in simply living isolated from the urban intellectual environment.

I have a paper planned within my current thesis proposal on the future of farming addressing this issue. Anyone wants to collaborate, or for me to collaborate with them on their projects in this area, please do get in touch.

These are very, very important issues, fundamentally important, with great urgency, way past time we were able to get on with addressing them finally.