How To Become A GP In Australia: Secrets Revealed!

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Medical Students / Training
Article Date: 05 May 2009 - 8:00 PDT

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The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) has released the GP Pathway program, a series of online learning activities that provide an overview of the training process for Australian general practice.

The first module of the GP Pathway program Setting the scene - an introduction to becoming a GP in the Australian health system is specifically designed for medical students and medical graduates who are interested in a career in general practice. Access to this activity is open to all who are interested at no cost through the RACGP's online education portal gplearning at www.gplearning.com.au.

"This is a wonderful resource for all those wanting to know more about the journey of general practice in Australia; these learning materials provide a really strong overview of the training process involved and anyone can access it at any time," said Dr Chris Mitchell, RACGP President, and GP in Northern NSW.

"The pathway to a career in general practice is quite complex and a wide range of people might find this new online module helpful: high school students, medical students, medical graduates, international medical graduates, those working in medical education or starting out as medical educators, medical writers, primary care teams and many more," said Dr Mitchell.

After working through this two-hour module, participants should be able to:

- Identify the role of the GP in the Australian health system
- Recognise the importance of the multidisciplinary approach to health care in Australia
- Appreciate the diversity of Australian general practice and how standards are set and maintained to ensure high quality patient care
- Discuss the four main stages of the journey towards becoming a qualified general practitioner in Australia
- Appreciate the context of the Australian healthcare system enabling the construction of an overview map of a personally appropriate pathway to providing unsupervised general practice care in Australia
- Recognise the need for systematic approaches to patient safety.

The first GP Pathway module is one of the compulsory requirements for international medical graduates entering into Australian general practice through the new RACGP specialist pathways.

By completing this activity GPs can earn category 2 QA&CPD points.

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP)