Medical Education in Australia - Internship

Internship

Recently, the intern training system in Australia has come under severe criticism for refusing to provide internships to locally trained medical school graduates on the basis of their citizenship. Over 150 graduating medical students are facing deportation and unemployment as the Australian medical degree has only variable accreditation worldwide. This is despite a severe shortage of doctors in Australia, and a practice of importing large numbers of trained physicians from abroad.

All States and Territories require recently qualified medical practitioners to successfully undertake and complete at least one year of supervised practice, generally known as an internship. Internship is undertaken in hospital positions accredited for this purpose. Interns in Australia are 'undifferentiated', meaning that they undertake rotations through many different specialties. Rotations differ from hospital to hospital and state to state. However, most states require three core terms to be completed - a medical term (general or subspecialty internal medicine), general or subspecialty surgery, and emergency medicine. In some states, a general practice term is offered instead of the Emergency Medicine term.

Historically the intern year was the only postgraduate training required to obtain a Provider Number. However, since 1996 the Commonwealth Government no longer issues Provider Numbers to doctors who have not completed postgraduate training (with some notable exceptions). A Provider Number is required to bill Medicare

Aside from experience gained through working, formal educational opportunities are required to be provided by hospitals for junior doctors. Accreditation and oversight of this phase of medical education is by each State's postgraduate medical council. There has been some movement towards a national set of standards for internship.