So you're a specialist from another country and you want to work in Australia
and you've made it all the way through the process
up until the point of receiving partial or substantial comparability
from the relevant College. What are your next and final steps? We'll
find out in this next and final video of the series.
Hello there. I'm Dr.
Anthony Llewellyn, the career doctor.
If you're a specialist doctor from another country, Congratulations on making it this
far through the process and also Congratulations
on making it to the last of my videos in this series as well.
And thanks for watching. I mean that.
Remember, if you're looking for more information or
help, then I do have a free course on the specialist pathway,
which contains all of these videos, plus even more helpful and useful
information about the process link in the description or here or here.
And if you're wanting a personal hand through the process,
then I do offer a range of coaching and other services to help you out.
You might want to become one of my limited VIP clients.
All links are in the description below.
So reviewing your decision
from the College, how do I go about reviewing my decision from the College?
So the first step in the final phase
of the specialist pathway is to understand the decision made by the College.
The College will determine that you are either partially comparable or
substantially comparable or not comparable.
If you're a Dean partially comparable, then you will generally be required
to work under supervision for two years or 24 months and most likely have to sit
examinations, which will be the same or equivalent to the final exams
of trainees for the College, the requirement to sit exams is pretty
much the case for all partially comparable specialists.
With one notable exception,
the College of Physicians generally does not require candidates
to sit examinations, even if they're found partially comparable.
I understand that this is on the basis
that in this College the exams are held at the end of basic
training, not at the end of advanced training.
So if you're found partially comparable, you're assumed to be at least
at the level of advanced training and therefore should not require exams.
Now, if you're deemed substantially comparable, then you'll generally be
required to work under supervision for twelve months,
and according to the rules, you will not have to sit any examinations.
Whether you have found partially or substantially comparable,
there may be certain additional requirements of your supervised placement.
You should cheque what these are.
Finally, if you've found not comparable,
then you are not eligible for this pathway.
And if you want to know
what some of your options might be, if you're not happy with that decision,
you can cheque the previous video in this theory.
Now, often the conditions you have are
around the level of supervision or the type of experience you need.
For example, in psychiatry, it is quite common for the College
to request some additional time in, say, consultation, liaison or childhood less
than psychiatry, as these are often gaps in programmes from other countries.
Oftentimes the special requirements is something simple, like completing a short
course or a learning module from the College website.
So that's not a really true.
At the very minimum,
you'll need to demonstrate that you are working effectively
via your supervisor reports, and there is normally some form
of external assessment that you have to pass with.
Someone from the College will review your work with you at your
work site in terms of what you will need to do to pass this final phase.
It's very important that you understand that it's up to you to find a position.
The College is not an employer and you're not being accepted into a training
programme, so the College does not organise positions
for specialist IMGs, so you need to be aware of the conditions
of your supervised placement and be active in seeking out employment for yourself.
Will the College help you in terms of whether the College might help you?
As I said, the College will generally make it quite clear throughout this process
that's not their role to find your employment.
However, depending on the College, they may offer you some level of support.
For example, you may find suitable positions advertised
by employers on the College website, and the College will likely also give you
access to its learning management system so you can complete some training.
For example, supervisor training.
This most likely will require you to pay
a fee to be some sort of member of the College
in terms of whether a medical recruitment company might be able to help you.
At this stage, a medical recruitment
company may be in a position to help you as you have a form of College endorsement.
Most medical recruitment companies will be happy to put you on the list at this
stage, but this doesn't necessarily mean that they will view you now
as a good prospect and therefore worth putting resources into.
They might just think that you might want to locom with them down the track when
you're established as a specialist in general, if you obtained
substantial comparability and are from one of the comparable countries
that's the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, Canada, or the US,
a medical recruitment company will be more actively interested in you,
but it does depend on the specialty that you're in.
Most surgical specialties as well as other procedural specialties such as
ophthalmology dermatology, Cardiology and gastroenterology,
are generally difficult to places they are more saturated in Australia.
On the flip side, even if you're not from a comparable
authority country, but have obtained partial comparability
in, say, psychiatry or general practise, which are heavily in demand specialties.
Here,
a medical recruitment company might be able to help you out
in terms of what jobs you should target.
Whether you have partial comparability or substantial comparability,
you need to know which sort of jobs to rule in or out.
A quick and effective way of doing this
is if you're looking at jobs online is to go to the selection criteria and see
what it is mentioned about registration and specialist qualifications.
Jobs that explicitly say you need to have registration already
and require you to already have a Fellowship are generally off limits.
If you see reference to terms such as
eligible for registration, fellowship with the College,
or eligible for fellowship or working towards fellowship as a trainer or
overseas specialists or anything like that, you can be pretty much sure
that they are keen to receive applications from specialist international medical
graduates in terms of what jobs you should target.
If you have partial comparability.
If you have partial comparability,
you're best off targeting jobs at an advanced training or fellow level.
And when I say fellow, I don't mean fellow of the College.
I mean a training position that is usually open to doctors who've
completed their training but have not started as consultants yet.
So an extra training role or research role at a pinch.
You might also want to apply for any
unaccredited positions, as these are also often roles that are
used to augment the College training workforce for that specialty.
In terms of what jobs you should target.
If you have substantial comparability with substantial comparability,
specialist NGS can also try applying for advanced training and fellowship roles.
But depending on the specialty that you are in,
you also find that there are consultant opportunities also available,
and these are definitely better jobs to get if you can.
Most commonly, these will be referred to as staff specialist roles.
What are my key tips for gaining a job?
Well, my key tips for gaining a job.
I've put into a bunch of other videos on this channel.
I've done lots of videos about how to go
about finding your first job in Australia, so I'm just going to touch on this topic
briefly for now with an emphasis on this particular category.
So in general, the same things will apply
whether you are recently graduated IMG, doctor or a specialist IMG.
One of the most common reasons I find that clients may not be being called
for an interview is that their resume or CV is out of shape.
Please don't
contact any employee until you've had someone who knows what they are doing.
Review your resume so many times I find that doctors are
submitting something that is too long, lacks clarity, and is in the wrong order
to what the employees are expecting to receive.
Think about it. This document represents you on a page
until you get the chance to talk to a potential employer.
The next problem is likely to be
that you're just applying online and not seeking to use
and or expand your existing network of connections to identify a job.
Yes, most doctor jobs are formally
advertised in Australia, but if you can get yourself
in the inside running where the employer invites you to apply.
Then this is so much better for you to think about whether you can visit
certain target hospitals or attend high yield conferences where other
specialists in your field are present, or asking colleagues to connect you
to others who may be able to influence your career here in Australia,
another problem I do see is inadequate English skills.
If English is not your native language, and it's important
to improve this as much as possible, if possible, reset your English language
test to prove to employers that your English is superior by getting,
say, an eight out of nine on the IELTS when just seven is sufficient.
This will really help you stand out.
A company with poor communication is poor interview performance.
It can be really nervewracking sitting for a job interview, particularly
if it's been some time and it's different to the College interview.
So consider getting some coaching and practise for this beforehand.
It can make a massive difference for you.
Finally, you might just have to accept
that you are in a really competitive field and that jobs are simply hard to come by.
If you've been at this process
for a while, again, consider getting some advice and reconsidering.
If a career in Australia in your specialty is going to actually happen for you,
how do you go about completing a specialist pathway requirements?
In terms of completing a specialist pathway requirements, it's important
to know that most specialist MGS who make it to the stage of gaining comparability
and getting a job post do end up gaining specialist registration.
However, it's not a fail to complete and you'll
still need to be able to demonstrate competence.
Overall, just under 94% of specialist IMGs
do successfully complete this final step of the pathway,
but the statistics do vary between certain colleges for the years 2017 to 2020.
For most colleges,
you have a very good prospect of passing close to 100%, regardless of whether
you're found to either be substantially comparable or partially comparable.
So long as you do obtain a job.
However, as you can see here from this
graphic for three particular colleges, it's quite a bit tougher.
The College of Surgeons
has a 27% rate of not recommending specialists at the end of the pathway.
The College of An Ethos has a 28% rate
and the College of Ophthalmologists has not recommended 48% or close to half
of all specialist Ings over the last four years that we have data for.
Unfortunately, we don't have breakdowns on substantially comparable versus
partially comparable, but I suspect it's those in the latter
that are partially comparable who are most often not being recommended.
As mentioned previously,
there may be some specific courses or training or experiential requirements
that you need to complete as part of your peer review period.
Most substantially comparable doctors need to have a period of twelve months peer
review with some form of external workplace based assessment process.
Here's an example table from the College of Psychiatrist that shows you
what might happen, but it does vary from College to College.
So at the start you get a three month job
orientation and you have to show that that's been completed in two months.
You do a formative case based discussion.
Then there's a supervisor's report at three months,
a summary of casebased discussion,
then at six months,
another summary of case based discussion,
and you may have to have completed some
360 feedback from that stage, and then there's a supervisor
six months as well, and then at nine months,
another summative case based discussion and a discussion at ten months
with a supervisor report and a final supervisor employment
interplacement declaration at the end of the twelve months.
If all of this goes well,
you are then recommended to the Medical Board for specialist
recognition and offered fellowship of the relevant College.
If you've been granted partial comparability, you will most likely have
to be peer reviewed for two years and you will generally be required to do
workplace based assessments similar to substantial comparability,
but you will also have to sit for examinations with the one
notable exception of the College of Physicians,
which doesn't seem to require partially comparable candidates to sit exams.
These exams are generally the same or
similar to the exit examination requirements for advanced trainees
of the programme that you have been granted approval for.
If you're having trouble completing
any of the requirements on time, don't fret the Medical Board and colleges
recognise the situations do change and circumstances do arise.
If you're having trouble completing your requirements within
the specified time period, which is usually the twelve months
for substantially comparable candidates and 24 months for partially
comparable candidates, you can apply for an extension of your
supervision period for substantial comparability.
You can generally gain up to twelve months
for an extension for partial comparability, up to an extra 24 months
in terms of what to do.
If you do run out of time, if you run out of your extension time,
then the situation does get a bit more serious here.
This is where the possibility
of the College not recommending you can become a possibility.
There may still be some options to apply
for special circumstances or appeal to gain some more time to complete your
requirements, so you should cheque with the College what your options are.
If all of your avenues have run out,
the College will most likely not recommend you for specialist registration.
This is serious, as you are now then officially at the end
of this process and it means you have to try via another pathway.
It's important to note that the College
cannot recommend you for some form of other registration.
For example, limited registration as a trainee or general registration.
Your registration status officially becomes unregistered.
In Australia. Again,
there is a slight possibility that if there are some concerns about your ability
to practise in certain areas of your specialty, but your skills.
There's a sound that you might be offered
what's called limited scope of practise to work as a specialist
in a smaller field.
But this is quite rare and doesn't often happen.
So there you have it.
That's the final steps of the Specialist pathway and that's the final video
in the Specialist Pathway series, a series that has taken me three years to make.
So thank you for your patience.
I will be adding some more videos to this series over time,
particularly if there are any important updates as well as specific videos
in relation to various specialties as it might make sense to do so.
Remember, you can also gain more information
and assistance by enrolling in my Specialist Pathway
course, which is free over on my website link in the description below
and you can find out about my one on one client services,
including my VIP packages as well by going to the description of this video.
So please subscribe
and turn on notifications and I will see you in other videos.
Videos. Bye for now.