Clinical Examination

Structure of the clinical examination

The AMC clinical examination is an integrated multidisciplinary structured clinical assessment.

The examination comprises 16 assessed stations and 4 rest stations.  It is administered either online via a video conferencing format at a location organised by the candidate, or when health restrictions allow, at the National Test Centre in Melbourne (NTC).

Candidates will rotate through a series of stations and will undertake a variety of clinical tasks. All candidates in a clinical examination session will be assessed against the same stations.

Most stations are of 10 minutes duration (comprising two minutes reading time, and eight minutes assessment time).

Stations may use actual patients, simulated patients, or videotaped patient presentations. Other relevant materials, such as charts, digital images and photographs may also be used in the examination.

Pre-requisites for the clinical examination

Candidates must have passed the MCQ examination before being eligible to proceed to the clinical examination.

Assessment and COVID Safety

The AMC NTC COVIDSafe Workplace Policy outlines the AMC’s approach to providing a COVID-Safe environment at the National Test Centre (NTC). The policy applies to any person who enters the NTC including, but not limited to, staff, contractors, visitors and exam participants.

For more information regarding examinations at the AMC NTC please refer to the NTC Website

To access the AMC COVIDSafe Workplace Policy please refer to the NTC Website

Assessment criteria

Stations will assess clinical skills relating to presentations of medical, surgical, women’s health, paediatrics and mental health problems. These will be in a variety of settings including community and hospital.

Each station has a single broad “predominant assessment area”. These are:

  • history taking
  • examination
  • diagnostic formulation
  • management/counselling/education.

Examples of material that could be included in the stations are:

  • taking the history of a patient with symptoms of shortness of breath [history taking station]
  • taking a history from a third party such as the parent or carer of a patient (history taking station)
  • physical examination of a patient with symptoms of suspected vascular disease [examination station]
  • interpretation of a laboratory report result [diagnostic formulation station]
  • diagnosis of a common skin lesion [diagnostic formulation station]
  • educating an asthmatic patient on the use of an inhaler [management/counselling/education station]
  • counselling a patient with obesity [management/counselling/education station]
  • presenting a management plan for a patient presentation (management/counselling/education station).

Online clinical examination

  • The format of examination stations has been developed for online delivery. The assessment blueprint and criteria remain the same as the in-person NTC examination with the exception of hands-on components of physical examination.

  • The candidate will be required to exhibit clinical reasoning, interpretation and detailed description of physical examination techniques and process.

  • The candidate may be delivering this information to either the examiner, medical student, patient, family member, carer or health professional.

Refer to the Clinical Examination Specifications document for more information.