I’m a medical student. I fear we are selecting future doctors on whether their parents can afford it

July 30, 2026 — 4:27pm

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Last week, the prime minister announced that students in 10 more health professions would be paid while on mandatory placement, physiotherapy, pharmacy and paramedicine among them, at around $338 a week. It is real help, and I am glad for my colleagues who will receive it.

Medical students were left out. Again.

According to the Australian Medical Students’ Association, we complete between 2000 and 4000 hours of various unpaid placements across our clinical years. I often do not know my timetable for the end of the week or the month. Activities begin at 7am and some fall out of hours or on weekends. Classes are rescheduled repeatedly on short notice.

Our placement sites move between suburbs as far-flung as Liverpool and Randwick, and some peers commute two hours each way for a class that runs for one. None of this is anyone’s fault; most medical schools’ timetables look like this, and it is because clinicians cannot tell us on Monday what their Thursday workload will look like – they do not know either. My university is doing its best to educate us inside a health system with no capacity left in it.

But the effect on us is the same, regardless of fault. You cannot choose your class timetable. You cannot pick........

© The Sydney Morning Herald