Posted October 14 2024
By Alasdair Spinner
Keen observers of Australia's processes for the assessment of specialist international medical graduates have known since April 2024 that there are new proposed pathways for GPs , Anaesthetists, Obs & Gyn and Psychiatrists, being devised by the devilish minds at the Australian Health Practitioners Regulation Agency (AHPRA and also known as the Medical Board).
AHPRA have now confirmed it as the Expedited Specialist Pathway (ESP for short, although we will probably need ESP to understand the bureacratic minds behind the scheme).
The first cab off the rank in terms of specialties are GPs. Their new ESP pathway is kicking in on 21st October. Anaesthesia, Obs & Gyn and Psychiatry will start in December 2024 - I expect the requirements for these specialties will be very similar to the following directive, which has just been announced, for GPs:
"Medical Specialists with a qualification on the Board's Expedited specialist pathway : accepted qualifications list can apply directly to the Medical Board (AHPRA) for specialist registration , rather than be assessed individually by a specialist college."
New GP ESP.
Specialist GPs with one of the following accepted qualifications will be eligible:
- Membership of Irish College of GPs (MICGP) from 2009 and a CSCST.
- FRNZCGP from 2012.
- MRCGP (UK) from 2007 and a CCT.
Anaesthesia, Obs & Gyn and Psychiatry will be announced in December so keep an eye out for these announcements.
AHPRA also announced in their press release that "jurisdictions are choosing the next specialties for the Expedited Specialist Pathway, based on workforce priorities". I expect Physicians - in particular General Internal Medicine , Paediatricians - to be also considered. Perhaps even Emergency Medicine.
On reading AHPRA's announcement, I spoke with a client of mine, a Clinical Director of Anaesthesia in a regional Australian city for his response on this removal of the colleges on the ESP. He said:
"I think the colleges like the huge amounts of money they can charge. In my experience I have never seen a UK trained anaesthetist with CCST or CCT ever get less then substantially comparable. I had to fly from UK to Melbourne for a 20 min chat! [AS: this was pre-covid days, now all job and college interviews are now online]"
I also asked a Clinical Director Obstetrics and Gynaecology if this will make a difference to the numbers of specialists applying. They said:
"We will see. There is always paperwork. I guess you still need all the verification of documents and registration with the AMC to start with so how vastly different will it be?
You can read my previous article about the Kruk report here and other blogs.