First Wave Scholarship
The GPSN First Wave Scholarship Program offers an opportunity for medical students in their first or second year to experience general 
practice under the guidance of a dedicated general practice supervisor.
Third and fourth year medical students from Victorian and Western Australian universities can also apply for a placement with an Indigenous health provider.
There is a choice of two different experiences:
• Clinical General Practice Scholarship
• Academic General Practice Scholarship
Students undertaking the clinical scholarship complete six supervised clinical placement sessions, typically over the summer holiday period, while students completing the academic scholarship complete four supervised sessions as well as work on a general practice-related academic research project.
A well-supported and positive experience of general practice
Research has shown that first exposure to any specialty plays an important role in influencing the perceptions of medical students as they progress through medical school. By optimising the medical student’s first exposure to general practice, there is a vast potential to create a positive foundation for considering the speciality as a career choice.
The benefits of this initiative extend not only to the student but also the wider community, building interest in general practice as a vocational choice.
‘Although it’s a wild notion, I’m convinced that if you want to learn how to be a good doctor you have to hang around doctors and do doctor stuff, which doesn’t include sitting in lectures and learning about science. We need programs like this if we’re going to make a proper decision about what kind of doctor we’d like to be,’ Matthew Dobson, University of Melbourne.
