General and rural training streams
General training stream
As a registrar with the general stream, you’ll gain experience by working in a range of locations. You’ll train mainly in metropolitan areas, but you’re also required to work in at least one other location:
- outer metropolitan location or non-capital city MMM 1 location
- regional, rural or remote location
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health training post.
You can meet this requirement by working for 12 months in one of these three locations, or by working in two of the locations for six months each.
Your preference for a particular training location is taken into account along with the local practice placement policy and the availability of an accredited training facility in that location.
Rural training stream
The rural stream offers training in a variety of locations outside metropolitan regions – regional, rural and remote areas which are classified as Modified Monash Model (MMM) 2–7. If you’ve chosen the rural stream, you’re expected to live in the rural community where you work.
The Modified Monash Model (MMM) defines whether a location is a city, rural, remote or very remote. MMM 1 is a major city and MMM 7 is very remote. Overseas doctors (international medical graduates and foreign graduates of an accredited medical school) who are subject to section 19AB of the Health Insurance Act 1973 (Cwlth) must train on the rural stream in MMM 2–7 areas and are not eligible for the general stream.
Rural generalist training
You can opt into the Rural Generalist Fellowship at any point in your AGPT program training. You’ll spend at least 52 weeks (FTE) of your community general practice training in an MMM 3–7 location, either in one continuous block or in two six-month terms. You’re expected to live in the rural community where you work.
You can complete the Rural Generalist Fellowship concurrently with the Fellowship of the RACGP over four years, which will allow you to develop the additional skills required to meet the diverse health needs of rural or remote communities.
Refer to General training stream, Rural training stream or Rural generalist training for further information about these training streams.
Training Regions
The map in Figure 2 shows the AGPT program training regions. You can refer to the AGPT Training regions page for more detail about each training region and sub-region. While you’re expected to stay in the training region that you nominated in your AGPT application for the duration of your training, there are circumstances where you may be approved to transfer between training regions. Refer to Transferring for more information.
Figure 2. AGPT training regions