Training
Becoming a General Physician
RACP Requirements for Advanced Physician Training
Advanced training, which has a minimum duration of three years, commences after basic physician training and success in the FRACP examination. The RACP specifies that prospective approval of each year of advanced training is required from the Specialist Advisory Committees (SACs). If the year in which the examination is passed is to be counted as an advanced training year, then prospective approval is required. The SACs are sub-committees of the RACP Committee for Physician Training which is constituted to advise on the duration and content of programmes and also on the approval and documentation of completion of training for individual trainees. Trainees must seek approval for each year of training but not necessarily with the same SAC. Each portion of advanced training is under the direct supervision of a nominated physician.
IMSANZ nominates physicians to the SAC in General Medicine.
Fellowship is awarded following documentation of completion of training. The "FRACP" is not further qualified by the name of the accrediting sub-specialty or SAC (or SACs).
IMSANZ specifies that at least four of the six years of physician training must be spent in clinical medicine. Prospective approval from the SAC in general medicine may be given to advanced trainees undertaking research programmes for up to two years. At the completion of training, however, a designated supervisor must state that the trainee is indeed a "properly trained physician".
General medicine does not define a specific period of "core" or "elective" training.
The main purpose of prospectively approved supervised advanced training is to satisfy the RACP that requirements for Fellowship have been achieved.
There is also an option for SAC - approved "post-Fellowship training" after completion and award of the FRACP. Fellows may wish to undertake further training within particular sectional specialties, over and above that undertaken during traineeship. For general medicine, the RACP currently specifies that supervisors will usually be "on site" (although special arrangements can be made in remote areas). "Research" can only be for two years or less.
Annual reports from trainees are mandatory and these should be at a standard suitable for publication in a medical journal or presentation at a major scientific meeting. Training may only occur within general or sub-specialty units. It is recommended that not all training should be within the one tertiary hospital and that a 6 month term in regional or community hospital is obligatory.
Although the RACP regulates training, a number of other bodies and individuals are involved in the general physician training process. These include advanced trainees, prospective physician trainees and their supervisors and mentors. Hospitals, including non-metropolitan hospitals, provide positions which might be staffed by approved advanced trainees. Training outcomes are observed by community representatives including government, particularly those aspects which relate to workforce numbers and distribution, as well as to the "quality" of the resultant physician in terms of potential clinical, teaching, research and administrative roles.
For further information, please refer to the RACP's
Requirements
for Physician Training - Adult Internal Medicine website.
Awards & Scholarhips
There are currently four IMSANZ awards/scholarships open to Advanced Trainees. See Resources > Awards & Scholarships.