Professor Richard Hays has over 30 years’ experience as a GP and educator with a passion for rural and remote medicine and started his career with the University at the inception of the Medical School.

“I was there for six and a half years getting the program developed and seeing it through to the graduation of the first cohort,” Prof Hays said.

“Since then I have helped start up medical schools in Ireland, UK, Thailand, Canada and I have been involved in quality assurance of medical education throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, the western Pacific and Asia.”

Prof Hay said he had been awarded nearly 50 research grants and had published 200 peer-reviewed papers.

“I really enjoyed writing, and have also written a number of text books,” he said.

While Prof Hays enjoyed his adventures around the globe, his heart is in rural practice.

“I decided at this stage of life to step out of University management and focus on clinical practice, teaching and research, back in rural and remote Australia, where the need is still greatest,” he said.

Prof Hays will now grow the research capacity of the Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health (MICRRH) and contribute to the training of General Practice registrars.

In his new role with the University’s Generalist Medical Training program (GMT), he aims to be a point of contact for registrars in small towns.

“I think it’s important for people to have a name and a face and a person to contact,” he said. “I look forward to getting around the region and meeting the teaching practices, meeting the registrars and being there for them.”

As a research-orientated person he said there are some amazing opportunities in rural and remote health care and he would like to help expand the research culture in the north-west.

“I am certainly interested in helping people design projects that will be helpful to their community and will help answer any important question.”

It was his passion for research that lead him to findings on the shortages of medical practitioners in rural and remote areas.

“A paper I co-authored recently confirms for all of us that, despite 20 years of significant advances, the communities that are missing out are the smaller rural ones, that aren’t on the coast, and the fairly remote communities, like Mount Isa, where there are still significant workforce shortages and people tend to be transient.”

However, Prof Hays believes JCU is encouraging more doctors to take up posts in rural and remote Australia.

“One of the attractions of (JCU’s postgraduate program) GMT is that it is the right model, being University based. I have always felt that these programs should be very strongly linked to a University medical school,” he said.

“Here we have JCU producing a lot of medical graduates who are interested in, and come from, rural and regional areas. Many of them will work there if they can get jobs and training.”

JCU is now working to expand upon its success in the provision of its medical training via additional Regional Training Hubs Funding from the federal Government. This funding will allow the University to build and connect regional specialist training pathways across Queensland.

Prof Hays said this was a step in the right direction to fulfil the needs of regional and remote communities. “There needs to be more generalist training for the surgeons, physicians, paediatricians etc, with more opportunities in the north of the country,” he said.