Why aren't more overseas-trained doctors working as GPs in rural NSW?

This book explores the barriers that permanent resident overseas-trained doctors (PROTDs) believe are preventing them from working as general practitioners in rural New South Wales. Australia as a whole and NSW in particular has a serious medical workforce shortage. Yet despite the shortages a large number of PROTDs living in NSW are not in the medical workforce. This book investigates the difficulties that PROTDs have faced in securing and maintaining medical registration to work in general practice in rural NSW. This study focuses specifically on overseas-trained doctors (OTDs) from non-English speaking backgrounds who are permanent residents of Australia or Australian citizens and migrated to Australia for reasons other than employment. The PROTDs under discussion were granted permanent Australian residency independent of their medical qualifications and with no guarantees of employment. The majority of these PROTDs would have migrated to Australia before 1997 when immigration became more difficult and would therefore have arrived at a time when OTDs were not particularly welcome in Australia.