Shape the future of rural medical education and inspire the next generation of healthcare leaders. The University of Queensland is seeking an accomplished clinical academic to lead a Learning Community within the Rural Clinical School, where you will create an inclusive, supportive, and high-performing environment that enables medical students to flourish throughout their Doctor of Medicine journey.
This is a highly visible leadership opportunity to influence student success, strengthen partnerships across rural and regional health services, and champion excellence in medical education while contributing to a vibrant culture of collaboration, scholarship, and community impact.
As Head of the Learning Community, you will cultivate meaningful connections between students, clinical educators, health professionals, and local communities, ensuring students benefit from exceptional learning experiences across diverse healthcare settings. Working alongside dedicated rural clinicians and academic leaders, you will help foster a strong sense of belonging while advancing UQ's commitment to creating positive change through education, research, and service.
Key responsibilities will include:
This is a teaching focused position. Further information can be found by viewing UQ’s Criteria for Academic Performance.
Located within the UQ Medical School, the Rural Clinical School (RCS) is the largest rural clinical school hosted by a single university. It works to foster and sustain a skilled and dynamic medical workforce to meet the needs of rural, regional, and remote Queensland.
The Rural Clinical School provides students with rigorous clinical training built upon hands-on experiences in hospitals and community-based practices. Above all, we give our students the unique opportunity to live and work in some of Queensland’s amazing rural, regional, and remote locations. Our classrooms are the public and private hospitals, specialist consulting rooms, general practices and community healthcare settings throughout rural, regional and remote Queensland. Our teachers are dedicated and passionate rural clinicians. Our students get the opportunity to learn in a range of clinical contexts across the public, private and community sectors.
The greater benefits of joining the UQ community are broad: from being part of a Group of Eight university, to recognition of prior service with other Australian universities, up to 26 weeks of paid parental leave, 17.5% annual leave loading, flexible working arrangements, access to exclusive internal-only vacancies, and genuine career progression opportunities via the academic promotions process.
For more information about this opportunity, please contact Professor Riitta Partanen at r.partanen@uq.edu.au
For application inquiries, please reach out to the Talent Acquisition team at talent@uq.edu.au, stating the job reference number (below) in the subject line.
When you apply, please ensure you upload a resume, cover letter, and responses to the ‘About You’ section.
Pre-employment checks may include verification of the right to work in Australia, qualifications, professional registration (e.g. AHPRA), criminal history checks, mandatory immunisations, First Aid and/or CPR certification, and Blue Card checks. This may also include checks relating to gender-based violence matters or other integrity and conduct requirements.
You must maintain unrestricted work rights in Australia for the duration of this appointment to apply. Employer sponsored work rights are not available for this appointment.
We're dedicated to equity, diversity, and inclusion. We recognise that career pathways and opportunities differ, and encourage applications from candidates who may not meet every criteria but can demonstrate their potential relative to opportunity. We’re also happy to support any accessibility needs throughout the recruitment process. Just let us know how we can help by emailing talent@uq.edu.au or calling +61 7 3365 2623.
Applications close 29th of September 2026 at 11.00pm AEST (R-69006). Please note that interviews have been tentatively scheduled for early to mid-October 2026.
