General Practice

From 2026, no referees are required in the AGPT application for standard entry. The selection is based on the online assessment. Prepare thoroughly for the assessment format described on the RACGP website.

Rural pathway financial incentives are real, but placements commutable to a major city are limited and highly competitive.

ACRRM (Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine) offers an alternative fellowship pathway focused on rural generalism. Consider both colleges if you are interested in rural or remote medicine.

If you have already sat RACGP Fellowship exams since January 2019, you need at least 2 of your 6 exam semesters remaining at training commencement to be eligible to (re-)apply.

GETTING A TRAINING PRACTICE IS A SECOND APPLICATION, and it is the one most applicants are least prepared for. Once you hold a program offer you give your training intentions, then view and apply for vacancies in the RACGP placement portal, then take part in each site's own selection. The portal shows details of each vacancy and how many applicants a site already has, which is the only competitiveness number anywhere in the process. Practices differ: some interview potential registrars, others offer without interviewing. Prepare for an interview and do not assume one.

WHAT PRACTICES TEND TO VALUE, and RACGP publishes none of this. It is intoSET's reading of how practices describe their own recruitment, so weigh it against the vacancies you are actually applying to. Clinical breadth in the disciplines general practice draws on most: dermatology, obstetrics and gynaecology, orthopaedics, emergency medicine, paediatrics, ear nose and throat, psychiatry, sexual health and geriatrics. Time already spent consulting in general practice, which is the closest evidence there is that you can do the job. Procedural skills a practice can use from day one: skin excisions and suturing, joint and soft tissue injections, implant and intrauterine device insertion, cryotherapy, spirometry, point-of-care ultrasound. Experience with the population a particular practice serves, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health, refugee or migrant health, aged care, drug and alcohol, or student health.

AUDIT TRAVELS FURTHEST of the academic criteria, because practices run their own quality improvement and accreditation, so a registrar who has completed an audit cycle is useful rather than merely credentialled. Research and publications matter more at a teaching or academic practice and less at a busy community one. Teaching experience matters where the practice takes medical students itself. A diploma in a field the practice works in, such as child health, sexual and reproductive health, skin cancer medicine or the DRANZCOG, is worth more than a general postgraduate qualification.