Queensland regional doctors are so far and few between there is only one general practitioner for as many as 1800 people in some areas in the state.
The figures have prompted the Australian Medical Association of Queensland to renew its call for more GP training places, fearing residents outside South-East Queensland are missing out on vital medical services.
The worst doctor-patient ratio in the state is in Central Queensland, where there is one GP to every 1824 people.
"We are [also] hearing from our colleagues in [the] Ipswich-Toowoomba area where we've got a population explosion ... and we're getting up into ratios of one to 1500-1600, when really we should not go above the figure of about one GP to 1000," AMAQ president Dr Mason Stevenson said.
The state average is one full-time GP to 977 people.
People in rural areas spend between 25-30 per cent less on general practice services than city-dwellers, figures based on Medicare claims show.
"We have definite evidence here in Australia and overseas that we have increased morbidity or mortality rates if you live in rural Queensland and rural communities generally," he said.
The phenomena is Australia-wide, Dr Stevenson said, with the shortfall now emerging in more populated areas.
"We have real problems finding Australian graduates preparing to go bush for long periods of time and that is why more than 50 per cent of doctors outside of South-East Queensland in both the private and public sectors are international medical graduates, without whom the private and public health service would collapse in Queensland."
The AMA has called for an extra 100 trainees each year to address the shortage across Australia.
Twenty years ago as many as 50 per cent of medical graduates entered traditional general practice.
Of the 551 Queensland medical students due to graduate at the end of the year, Dr Stevenson said he expected only 25 per cent would enter general practice, while the rest would pursue specialist fields.
"That puts intolerable strain and stress on those general practices, but it also reduces access to frontline primary care services and that results in a delay in diagnosis and delay in treatment, which unfortunately does result in patient harm."
Dr Stevenson said Queensland had largely been dependent on interstate and internationally trained doctors as graduates in the state were limited to 241 for the last three decades.
"At last that is finally being addressed with a swell in graduate numbers in the past four to five years," he said.
"We do have renewed interest in general practice from medical students. We now need to accommodate for these new graduate expressing an interest in general practice and are capable of doing so."
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