Country kids who grew up dreaming of being doctors now have the chance to follow that path without moving to the city.
Deakin University's new rural training stream reserves highly competitive medical school places for country applicants who already hold a degree.
Once enrolled, the students are sent for hands-on training in small hospitals in towns in the west of Victoria including Ararat, Portland, Stawell, and Warrnambool.
Rural Community Clinical School director, Associate Professor Lara Fuller said the program was designed to address the issue of workforce shortages in the south-west and Grampians.
Dr Fuller said that there was "good evidence" to suggest that that was a likely outcome.
"Work we've done looking at our own graduate outcomes has shown that rural clinical experience, plus selecting students from a rural background, means that those students are more likely to work rurally when they graduate," she said.
Dr Fuller said the approach could help to resolve the brain drain from country towns.
"Historically, for medicine, medical school and post-graduate training has been located in cities," she said.
"It can take a long time, we're talking 10 years-plus, to complete the full medical training.
The new model Deakin has adopted provides 30 training places available only to rural and regional students, and gives priority to applicants from Deakin's rural partner communities in South West Victoria and the Grampians region.
The concepts underpinning it are based partly on the experience of students like Greg Howe.
Mr Howe began his training in Geelong and chose to do his clinical training in the rural clinical school distributed across Colac, Camperdown, Portland, Hamilton, Ararat, Stawell, Horsham, Daylesford, and Bacchus Marsh.
"We've had students, like Greg, completing a year in small places like Portland for some time, and we're starting to see the benefits of that program," Dr Fuller said.
Mr Howe had a career as a nurse in Sydney but moved to Geelong to take up his place in Deakin's medical course.
"Last year I spent the entire year in Portland, my time spent between the GP Clinic and the hospital there," he said.
"As a result I decided to stay, so I've actually bought a house in Portland."
Mr Howe said that he was meant to be going back to Geelong for his final year at Deakin, but instead applied to spend his final year in Warrnambool, a town one hour from his new home in Portland.
"There were only regional students in Portland, compared to the bigger clinical schools where you're really competing with a whole lot of other students to see patients and spend time with the senior doctors," he said.
"Not to mention that it's just a really beautiful part of the country."
Deakin's Dean of Medicine, Professor Gary Rogers, said it was the first step towards a bigger vision where country kids who dreamt of being doctors might never have to leave their home towns.
