THE Darling Downs Hospital and Health Service's Queensland Rural Generalist Pathway team has won the Leadership category at the Premier's Awards for Excellence.

Stanthorpe-based Dan Manahan is the Director of Rural Medical Services and former head of the Rural Generalist Pathway for the Darling Downs.

Dr Manahan said the accolade was a great recognition of the continued work of the regional division in training and retaining doctors well-equipped to serve rural communities.

"A lot of the work we had done around the Premier's Award was while I was still in the role as director of the Rural Generalist Pathway in 2015,” he said.

"Our goal was and continues to be to produce good clinical doctors for rural practice.

"We had an established pathway for some 10 years, everyone in the team is highly motivated and truly believe working as a rural doctor is the best job on earth.

"The Darling Downs is the largest user of Queensland Generalist Pathway, having the largest number of doctors trained through the pathway.”

From its start in 2007 with 18 interns, the QRGP has grown rapidly, averaging about 40 interns a year from 2008 to 2014.

Another 72 started in the pathway in 2017 following a record 77 interns last year, and the Federal Government is working to establish a national pathway.

"The pathway is a road

map to becoming a rural clinician and we're dedicated to keep telling that story about what the job is like,

how you get trained, what

it's like to working in rural teams, skills and how valuable the work is,” Dr Manahan said.

"Factors shown to lead to doctors to working in a rural area long-term is having come from or having a strong student experience in a rural area,” he said.

"Not just Queensland but the whole of Australia deserve really well-trained doctors with skills needed to deliver for rural communities.

"Therefore I think it's a no brainer that a national pathway is established to deliver those skills essential to rural Australia.”