Dr Paul Cutting, Director of the Rural Distribution Section within the Rural Access Branch of the Commonwealth’s Department of Health. His current responsibilities include the management of the Commonwealth programs delivered through the Rural Workforce Agencies; the maintenance of the Modified Monash Model remoteness classification, which is being used by a range of health workforce programs to better direct resources to areas of need; and the annual updating of the Districts of Workforce Shortage system. Dr Cutting’s education is in pure mathematics, which he relied on in his previous work in the Department of Health’s Economic and Statistical Analysis Branch. In this former role, he provided assistance to areas across the Department in developing models and providing analysis across a range of health programs.

Ms Jennie Della is Director of the Professional Entry and Rural Training Section within the Health Training Branch of the Commonwealth’s Department of Health. Her current relevant responsibilities include the management of the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training Program which is delivered by a number of universities and aims to improve recruitment and retention of medical, nursing, dental and allied health professionals in rural and remote Australia through the delivery of rural health clinical training to health students. The RHMT Program includes support for: • rural health clubs; • the Northern Territory Medical Program; • the Indigenous Transition Pathways to Medicine and • the regional training hubs component of the Integrated Rural Training Pipeline for Medicine. Jennie has held various policy roles in the Department of Health including in palliative care, aged care, primary and acute care. When she’s not grappling with a policy role, Jennie likes to grapple with a camera.

Dr Susan Wearne was a GP in England prior to moving to Alice Springs in 2000, to work for Flinders University’s remote health training programs. Her PhD was on remote supervision in GP training and her textbook of clinical cases, is used by GP registrars preparing for their fellowship exams. She is now a Senior Medical Adviser in the Department of Health, Canberra in the Health Workforce Division, and focuses on the rural and remote health workforce. She works part-time in general practice in Canberra, and also in Alice Springs.