CDU Menzies Medical Program

The CDU Menzies Medical Program was established to provide an opportunity for local NT and First Nations students to study medicine and graduate as doctors who will make a difference in our community providing a local medical workforce pipeline for the NT. The medical program is a 5-year undergraduate entry MD course with 5 themes running concurrently: Patient Care, Health in the Community, First Nations Culture and Health, Personal and Professional Development, and the Scientific Basis of Medicine. The medical program has a strong focus on First Nations health and wellbeing, remote and rural medicine, rural generalism and provision of high-quality interdisciplinary team based regional and remote health services. Clinical placements will take students to rural and remote towns across the NT providing a rich experience in clinical medicine in rural and remote settings. We aim to deliver the most relevant and tailored medical program in the country setting a new standard for regional medical programs. 

The CDU Menzies Medical Program is currently going through the process of gaining accreditation by the Australian Medical Council which will be announced early next year. We're looking forward to welcoem students on campus in 2026!

Our Dean

 

Welcome to the CDU Menzies Medical Program. I have been the Dean of the CDU Menzies Medical Program since January 2022. I arrived in Darwin with my husband in 1998 as the first Intensive Care Specialist in the NT. From 1998 to 2016 I was the Director of ICU at Royal Darwin Hospital (RDH) and helped developed the ICU service in Darwin into a nationally accredited training and research unit focusing on improving critical care outcomes for the community of the Top End. During this time, I had the privilege to lead the RDH ICU response to the Bali bombings and serve with the RAAF specialist reserves in Iraq. I had the inspiring opportunity to spend a sabbatical year teaching intensive care medicine to doctors in Fiji in 2016. I returned to Darwin to the role of Medical Director of the National Critical Care and Trauma Response Centre (NCCTRC) and enjoyed teaching and capacity building in health disaster response across the Pacific. I then worked in the NT Health COVID-19 response before moving to CDU in 2022. Medicine and the NT have provided me with a very rich and rewarding professional career and I look forward to guiding the next generation of NT doctors through the medical program and into a profession filled with possibilities.  

Professor Dianne Stephens - Research profile.