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Become a general practitioner

You can download this infographic as a jpeg and print it out.

RACGP Find out more on How to be a doctor General Practitioner

From high school

Check with the university or universities you are applying to about the entry requirements for high school graduates. This may involve:

Some universities offer a 5 or 6 year undergraduate medical degree.

Some universities offer a slightly different pathway for high school graduates. If you have provisional entry into medicine from high school, you will do a 2 year accelerated undergraduate degree (e.g. Biomedical Science) before entering medical school. In this pathway you will do a 4 year medical degree following on from your 2 year accelerated biomedical science / health science degree.

Graduate entry

Check with the university or universities you are applying to about the entry requirements for university graduates. This may involve:

  • GAMSAT – you may need to register for and sit the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test and achieve a high score (click here for Dr Gerry Considine’s tips for GAMSAT success)
  • GPA – your grade point average, that is, the average of your grades in your undergraduate university degree is often used as part of the entry criteria (usually this is on a scale of 1 to 7)
  • Interview – many medical schools also have interviews as part of their student selection process

In Australia the medical degree is generally 4 years when you are entering as a university graduate.

Medical Degree (4 to 6 years)

As you will have noted above, Medical degrees in Australia are between 4 and 6 years depending on whether you are coming into the degree via a pathway directly from high school or as a university graduate.

Internship (1 year)

During this year a number of rotations are completed in different departments in a hospital.

Residency (1 or more years)

More rotations in a hospital. Some residents stay in this part of the medical training pathway for a number of years before they can gain entry into the vocational training program of their choice. Check with the Royal Australian College of General Practitiners or the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine as to whether you are eligible to commence Vocational Training with them immediately after your intern year without having to complete residency years.

Vocational training (3 to 4 years)