New Zealand and Australian graduates (internship completed)
This pathway is for New Zealand and Australian medical graduates who have successfully completed their internship in Australia and want to register within the General scope of practice.
Prerequisites
You can apply for registration through this pathway if you:
- have a primary medical degree from a New Zealand or Australian university medical school,
- have completed your internship in Australia, and
- meet our "fitness for registration" requirements
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To apply for registration as a medical practitioner in New Zealand, or to sit the New Zealand Registration Examination (NZREX Clinical), you must have a recognised primary medical qualification from a university medical school listed on the World Directory of Medical Schools.
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Any doctor applying for registration in New Zealand must be fit for registration and fit to practise medicine. It's a legal requirement on us to ensure they are. We determine this as part of our assessment of your application for registration.
Applying for registration
It is likely you will have a job offer before you apply for registration. If so, you and your employer need to work together to complete your application using Checklist 1 and the REG1 application form.
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Application for registration in New Zealand
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New Zealand and Australian graduates: This checklist will help you to confirm your eligibility for registration, tell you what documents you need to provide, and will tell you what documents you need to have verified at source by EPIC.
Primary source verification of documents
Please don't send us your application documents until you have sent the required documents for primary source verification through the EPIC system. The verification process can take time and we cannot process your application until we have received the verification at source.
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Doctors who hold overseas qualifications and who want to apply for registration in New Zealand must have key documents verified from their primary source.
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Special instructions and FAQs for applicants to the Medical Council of New Zealand
Have you completed PGY2?
You will need to complete PGY2 of our prevocational training programme if you have not already completed your PGY2 year in Australia.
During training you will be employed by a Council-accredited training provider. You will have a endorsement on your practising certificate recording that you are required to practise in accredited clinical attachments and maintain a professional development plan.
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All graduates of New Zealand and Australian accredited medical schools undertake prevocational medical training, also known as the intern training programme. It is also undertaken by doctors who have obtained registration based on a pass in the New Zealand Registration Examination (NZREX Clinical). Training for interns spans two years across postgraduate year 1 and postgraduate year 2.
Recertification requirements for PGY3 and beyond
If you have completed PGY1 and PGY2 in Australia, you will need to enrol in either:
- Inpractice, the Council-approved recertification programme run by bpacnz, or
- an accredited vocational training programme.
You must let us know how you will be recertifying when you apply although you don't need to start the programme until you've started work in New Zealand.
Alternatively, if you hold an approved postgraduate qualification and are also applying for a vocational scope, you won't need to recertify for your general scope. Provided you are doing appropriate recertification for your vocational scope, and are not working outside of this scope, we will record you as not practising in your general scope.
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This page sets out the recertification programme requirements for doctors registered in the General scope of practice only. The requirements will be different if you also have a vocational scope of practice.
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If you are registered and practising in both a vocational scope and in the General scope of practice, you do not have to join the Inpractice recertification programme provided by bpacNZ. You will however still need to meet recertification programme requirements in both scopes of practice.