A CAMPAIGN to attract doctors to Beechworth has received strong community support in its initial stages, giving the practice a promising outlook in its mission to address the shortage in town.

Beechworth Surgery in December last year embarked on a six-month drive to recruit doctors with a ‘Find Doctors $1000 reward’ initiative to engage the community to help.

The surgery is one of hundreds of medical practices around the region, state and nation impacted for some years by the shortage of general practitioners in rural and remote areas.

Beechworth Surgery co-owner John McColl said the campaign to recruit doctors to the rural area of Beechworth had drawn significant community support.

“We’ve had a number of businesses, individuals and community groups register,” he said.

Interest on the campaign website page since the drive kicked off has also spiked with close to 700 hits.

Presently five full-time equivalent doctors serve a population of close to 4000 patients.

A further dilemma faces the practice from scheduled doctor departures this year reducing the full-time equivalent figure to around 3.3 full-time doctors.

“The need is for six full-time equivalent doctors - ideally part-time which is standard practice - to provide needed coverage for Beechworth and surrounds and also helps reduce burnout,” Mr McColl said.

“This is equivalent to 11 doctors working part time as doctors work in other areas among them emergency, Indigenous health services or to assist with training colleagues.

“The local community's support has been crucial and fantastic, and our efforts are ongoing to attract more doctors."

Mr McColl said universities had been working to address the problem over some years with a focus on rural medical students.

“The data is clear - if a medical student comes from a rural background, they are much more likely to stay in a rural general practice than if they grew up in the city,” he said.

“Universities are still on track with this education philosophy, and we are too.

“Medical students are coming through the system, but a much smaller percentage of them are choosing to become GPs.

“The difficulty faced is generally doctors came to us as registrars, and those were in the days when the number of medical students about 44 percent were choosing to become GPS.

“In recent years it's been down to 13 per cent so the numbers of registrars coming through are much lower.”

Beechworth Surgery co-owner David Dart said another contributing factor to the GP shortage is medical students pursuing a career such as being a specialist or to work in hospitals.

“Higher policy decisions are needed such as registration allocations to rural areas as opposed to cities as well,” he said.

Mr Dart said the surgery is also having some success with recruiting locums to help manage the load.

Mr McColl said they were grateful for the local community's support with the campaign.

For more information on how the community can help visit community groups and businesses can register their campaign support at www.surveymonkey.com/r/RegisterFDFB and will be provided with materials to share.

The campaign runs until the end of May this year.

For further details visit www.beechworthsurgery.com.au/find-doctors-for-beechworth/.