The sub-deans have arrived just in time to welcome the latest cohort of medical students to arrive in Ballarat from the university’s Rural Clinical School (BRCS).

Dr Cotton will be familiar to Ballarat residents from her time as a GP in the town and from working in palliative care with BHS, while Dr Rajapaksa grew up in Wales, training at the University of Cambridge. She has been in Ballarat for the past four years, working as a consultant paediatrician. 

The role of the new deans will be to coordinate the curriculum for the new students, as well as to help the teachers present the course and look after the welfare of the students.

Medical students of the University of Melbourne in Ballarat are doing clinical placements as part of a post-graduate degree as they train to become doctors, says Dr Cotton.

“The students have already attained other degrees. They are here to be on the wards, learn what the clinicians do – to gain the knowledge and the content they require.

“They need to learn how to behave like a doctor.”

Dr Rajapaksa will take the third year students, and Dr Cotton the second.

“We hope to give the students exposure to working in a rural and regional environment,” Dr Rajapaksa says.

“They need to be encouraged to be part of the community.”

The doctors agree that having the students, most of whom are not from the country, placed in Ballarat gives them the opportunity to see that a regional lifestyle might be an alternative for them. A community mentoring program will be added to this year’s course.

The MD course run by the BCRS is conducted in ‘Dunvegan’, one of Ballarat’s historic homes and currently the oldest building on the University of Melbourne’s portfolio.

The new cohort of Melbourne University medical students commenced study on Wednesday February 1.