Assessment of readiness for general practice
Overview
To be eligible to start in general practice, you need to have satisfactorily completed a minimum of two years of appropriate hospital terms in accredited Australian or New Zealand hospitals. You must also have completed a minimum amount of training time in four mandatory rotations – medicine, surgery, emergency medicine and paediatrics – in accredited Australian or New Zealand hospitals.
You’re also required to complete a basic life support (BLS) course in the 12 months before starting your first general practice term; the course must meet RACGP criteria. For more information, refer to Basic life support training.
If you have satisfactorily completed two years of appropriate hospital terms, are competent in the four mandatory hospital rotations, and have completed a BLS course, we are confident that you are safe and ready to start training in a general practice setting.
Hospital training time
The AGPT program requires registrars to complete two years (104 calendar weeks) of hospital work in an accredited Australian or New Zealand hospital, and 52 weeks of this must be worked at a level above intern level (generally, post-general registration). Some registrars will undertake this hospital training as part of the AGPT program.
A maximum of five weeks of annual leave and 10 days in total of all other types of leave (professional development leave, sick leave, carer’s leave, parental leave, leave without pay) can be included in each of 52-week blocks.
For the post-intern/post-general registration year, we recommend that your hospital experience be diverse, as generally, we won’t count more than 26 weeks in a 52-week period if it has been spent in one discipline.
If you haven’t met these requirements, you may not be eligible to start general practice terms and you may not be eligible for recognition of prior learning and experience (RPLE). Please contact your training team to discuss this.
We acknowledge that some registrars will have worked extensively in the hospital system before joining the AGPT program and are therefore ready to start in community general practice. As part of your induction, your program team will assess if you have adequate experience in accredited Australian or New Zealand hospitals to do so.
For more information, refer to Hospital training.
Mandatory hospital rotations
You must have satisfactorily completed the four mandatory rotations – medicine, surgery, emergency medicine and paediatrics –by the end of your hospital training time. You must be able to demonstrate this breadth of experience with supporting documentation, as detailed in Providing evidence of satisfactory completion of hospital rotations.
Recency of experience
We usually require your hospital experience to have been within five years of starting community general practice training. We may consider experience within 10 years if you can demonstrate how you’ve maintained the skills and knowledge acquired during the terms.
Assessing your eligibility to start in general practice
We will thoroughly assess your hospital experience through the RPLE process, but initially, you’ll need to provide supporting documentation of your experience for your program team to assess your readiness to start in general practice and therefore your eligibility to apply for RPLE. For more information, refer to What is RPLE? in Recognition of prior learning and experience.
If you’re assessed as having completed the mandatory terms plus you have sufficient demonstrable hospital experience to apply for RPLE, you may be considered ready to start your training in general practice.
If, however, you’re assessed as requiring further experience in hospital before starting in general practice, your program team will advise you how much time and what rotations you need to complete.
Providing evidence of satisfactory completion of hospital rotations
Before starting general practice placements, you’ll need to demonstrate safe practice in the four mandatory hospital rotations and that you have spent sufficient time training in hospital with a breadth and variety of hospital terms relevant to general practice. Provide the following evidence of satisfactory completion of each term:
- an end-of-term assessment form
- a statement of service from the Junior Medical Officer Manager (or equivalent), including the dates of the rotation
- evidence that you have met the requirements and competencies of each rotation, including the mandatory terms (Medicine term, Surgery term, Emergency medicine term and Paediatrics term).
The specific evidence requirements for each mandatory rotation are outlined in the relevant sections (Medicine term, Surgery term, Emergency medicine term and Paediatrics term), including the competencies that should be covered by the training. The requirements should be read in conjunction with the RACGP Curriculum and syllabus, particularly the core units, to ensure you focus on skills and experience relevant to general practice within the terms.