In this video, I'm going to answer for you the question,
why IMG doctors or international medical graduates are unable to undertake
a medical internship in Australia and what your alternative options might be.
Good day, Doctor Anthony Llewellyn here the Career Doctor.
And welcome to another video where I break
down for you the medical career process in Australia.
Today, I'm answering one of the most frequent questions that I receive
from international doctors or IMG, which is, can I do an internship in Australia?
And if not, why not?
As well as what are my other options?
So let's cut to the chase here.
Very few internationally trained doctors
are even eligible to apply for the internship positions in Australia,
and even those who may be eligible are pretty unlikely to receive one.
Now, there are two key reasons why this is the case.
The first one is that the medical
internship system in Australia is reserved for graduates of Australian
and occasionally New Zealand medical schools, and there are rarely any spare
posts available for anyone else who might want to apply.
More about this matter shortly.
Now, the second reason why IMG can't do internships in Australia is
that the majority of IMG doctors don't need to do an internship in Australia
because most IMG doctors who want to work in Australia have already done
an internship and usually a few more years of clinical practise.
So if this sounds like you and you want
to work as a doctor in Australia, then you should be investigating
the registration pathway that is relevant to you and think about applying
for a position suited to that particular pathway.
I will link to my video on registration pathways here and below.
But in short, you're probably either looking for a resident medical officer job
or a Registrar trainee job, or maybe even a specialist job,
depending on your circumstances and not an internship.
Now, in 2022, there are at least 3779
medical internships available across Australia, which does sound like a lot,
and perhaps maybe that there's a few to spare.
But once you consider that,
according to the official reports of the Medical Deans of Australia
and New Zealand, that there are 4048 medical students
in Australia due to graduate, then that 3779 figure becomes a little bit tighter.
The internship here in Australia is
actually considered to be an extension of your medical school training or
an interim phase that you must pass through before you are truly considered
to have entered the post graduate phase of training in this country.
Or to put it another way, successful completion of an internship is
the last step that you must complete after graduating from medical school in order
to be considered a fully fledged medical practitioner.
So this is why you are only granted
general registration Australia after you complete your intern year.
Now, 30 years ago, obtaining general registration was
considered to be a really big deal because it meant that you could either continue
in the hospital system or start practising as a general practitioner.
Things have changed now,
so you have to train and specialise in general practise first,
if that's the route you want to go down, and that's a good thing.
But general registration is still
a requirement for entry into any specialty training programme in Australia.
So hopefully you can now see why
an internship is essential for Australian medical graduates or graduates
of Australian medical schools, and why it is that the whole internship
system in Australia is set up to enable medical graduates of Australian medical
schools to obtain an internship, and why it would be impractical to allow
for other large groups of doctors who might be interested in doing
an internship to have access to this pool of particular job positions.
And that is why the rules of applying
for internship generally exclude IMG doctors from applying.
So why is there so much confusion about this particular matter?
Why do so many IMG doctors contact me
about how to obtain an internship when that's not what they need to do?
Well, I think the confusion mainly comes in when you go to look at the requirements
for registering via the Standard pathway with the Medical Board of Australia.
You can see here that the Standard Pathway is the most common pathway that most IMG
utilise when attempting to gain recognition as a doctor in Australia.
Now, under this pathway,
you need to complete a certificate called the Australian Medical Council
Certificate, which demonstrates your knowledge and skills are appropriate,
and you need to also demonstrate satisfactory performance by working
in a supervised position, and that has to be for twelve months.
This requirement to do twelve months
of supervision and the associated advice about what constitutes satisfactory
performance is what creates the confusion, in my opinion,
because you can see that the Medical Board itself references the intern training
standards and intern outcomes in its document.
So I can fully understand why Ings might
think that they need to obtain an internship to meet these standards.
So I do think that the Medical Board could
do a slightly better job of explaining that whilst they are referencing
the Intern standards, they expect that the RMO doctors obtain
alternative positions that allow them to demonstrate these standards
and that intern posts are reserved for Australian medical graduates.
Okay, so what are the alternative positions then?
What jobs can IMG doctors or doctors from overseas apply for if not internships?
Well, it partly depends on your level of experience, what country you did your
medical degree in, and any postgraduate qualifications that you might have.
But as a general rule, if you are a relatively junior or trainee
doctor from another country and you're attempting the Standard pathway process
for registration in Australia, then you want to look for jobs that have
something like resident medical officer in the title.
If you find a position like this, then the next thing you need to do is skip
down to the selection criteria and look for a statement something like this
eligible for registration with the Medical Board of Australia.
This statement generally means that an IMG
doctor can apply for this particular position.
For more information about this subject see my other videos on the topics
and by the way, if you are seeking further advice about your personal situation,
I do offer a risk free call where you can discuss with me one on one your particular
situation and we can clarify any doubts you have and develop a strategy for you.
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in another video bye for now, bye.