Immerse yourself in a rural or remote community with health and service-learning experiences that will broaden your skills, knowledge and cultural competencies and deepen your understanding of the health needs and disparities affecting people living in rural and remote communities.
The Faculty of Medicine and Health has a Rural Health Precinct with three rural clinical schools which manage placements for many disciplines as well as student accommodation, wellbeing, cultural immersion and social programs. Locations include Broken Hill, Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobar, Dareton, Lightning Ridge, Lismore, Grafton, Dubbo and Orange.
Outside the Rural Health Precinct, we engage with many health providers throughout New South Wales and beyond in public, private and community settings that offer student placements and where students are known to have excellent placement experiences.
Rural placements are available to all students in pre-registration/professional medical and health programs and in many courses students are expected to have at least one rural placement during their program.
If a rural placement is a course requirement, students may be allocated to a rural placement automatically. There are also a range of opportunities for students who have particular interests in rural health and/or seeking a future career in rural health. Rural opportunities include:
The type of accommodation and support services for rural placements may depend on your course and the location of your rural placement. If, for example, your placement is within our Rural Health Precinct, you will have access to a wide variety of support services, including subsidised and accessible accommodation, teaching and learning facilities, interprofessional learning, social events and cultural awareness programs.
Usually you will need to organise your own accommodation for rural placements offered through our many partner organisations in the public, private and community settings.
We understand there are additional financial challenges with undertaking placements in rural areas. We will help you to access financial support available through the Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney scholarships and bursaries or external rural scholarships, such as through NSW Health.
