Retired doctor: Universities must ‘get over’ placement pressure

Tuesday, 17 March 2026

A retired cardiologist who helped train generations of doctors says accommodating more medical students is not only doable, it is essential.

Cardiologist Clyde Wade said universities worried about the rising demand for clinical placements created by Waikato’s new medical school needed to “get over it and sort it out”.

“We are going to need more training places, and there is going to be pressure on training places, there's no question about that, but I don't think that's a reason for not doing it.”

The former head of medicine at Waikato District Health Board said he had been involved in recruiting doctors and training junior doctors for about 35 years, and had been the de facto clinical director of Waikato’s rural hospitals.

Asked how he and his team would have coped with the influx of medical students — requiring attention and resources — he said they “would have managed it”, but also emphasised the importance of spreading placements throughout the country.

This comes as medical schools work with the Government to coordinate clinical placements — an issue that was flagged by the University of Otago late last year.

The university wrote to the Health Minister in October, raising concerns that Waikato students would be placed in Christchurch and Nelson, while a second letter warned Otago and Auckland universities might have to reduce some placements without having been consulted.

The university told the Waikato Times last week the Government had listened to its concerns about placements, and said it was looking forward to working collaboratively with Waikato University.

A Waikato University spokesperson said they were working with Health NZ, communities and primary care providers “to identify locations that will support clinical placements for students”.

They said the Ministry of Health had convened a forum of senior leaders from Waikato, Auckland and Otago universities, and other agencies, “to support coordination of clinical placements”.

Wade said the pressure on placements reflected a larger issue: New Zealand needed to train more doctors.

It had been an issue throughout his entire career, and the demand was only set to increase.

“We need more doctors and to do that we need training places,” he said.

This would be the case regardless of whether numbers were increased by a new medical school, or solely by raising the current Government cap on intake sizes at the existing medical schools at Otago University and Auckland University.

More than 500 medical students currently graduated in New Zealand each year, most of whom remain in the country after graduating, unlike their internationally trained counterparts.

He cited figures in a 2025 Medical Council of New Zealand (MCNZ) report, which said retention of New Zealand graduates was high: three years after graduating, 88% were still in the workforce, while after two years the majority of international medical graduates had moved on, with just 40% retained.

However, New Zealand relied heavily on overseas-trained doctors to fill workforce gaps.

“I suspect there's some boffin in Treasury who calculates that it's cheaper to buy in doctors than it is to grow our own, I suspect that's a seriously flawed calculation.”

The MCNZ report put the number of international graduates at 43.5% of doctors on the register.

Wade said the reliance on overseas-trained doctors often led to instability in rural and provincial areas.

“A lot of the overseas medical graduates end up in our rural areas or smaller regions, and they don't stay very long, so it creates a lot of instability.”

While overseas doctors made a great contribution, increasing the number of locally trained doctors would provide a more stable workforce.

Waikato’s upcoming medical school, which would take in its first 120-student cohort in 2028, was partly based on evidence that doctors were more likely to put down roots and remain in the areas where they trained, he said.

“It's been shown internationally that if you train people from rural areas in rural areas, then they're more likely to stick around.”