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Working with stakeholders to progress workforce reforms

16 August, 2024

Today the Australian Medical Council met with health ministers, jurisdictions, colleges and Ahpra to consider and progress a number of reforms designed to address medical workforce shortages and improve access to high-quality medical care for all Australians.

Some of the reforms the AMC is working on include working with the specialist colleges and jurisdictions to implement the recommendations of the National Health Practitioner Ombudsman’s (NHPO) Report into the accreditation of specialist training sites.  These measures are aimed at improving communication between stakeholders and achieving greater consistency of accreditation processes, policies, procedures and decisions across the specialist colleges.

The AMC is contributing to the work by the Medical Board of Australia, Ahpra and the specialist colleges to develop an expedited pathway for specialist international medical graduates in response to the recommendations of the Kruk review. This streamlined process will facilitate quicker assessments and recognition of specialist international medical graduates who hold qualifications assessed as being substantially equivalent or based on similar competencies to the approved Australian qualification.

The AMC is committed to working with stakeholders to meet the expectations set by the Kruk review to ensure that we have timely, effective and efficient systems in place so that we can continue to attract and retain skilled overseas-trained doctors.

Some of our initiatives that have direct relevance to the Kruk review include:

  • Changing the pass mark for the AMC’s examination which will increase the number of qualified doctors entering the workforce while maintaining high standards of patient care.
  • Reducing the fee of the AMC multiple choice question examination to help ease the financial burden of assessments.
  • Reviewing the AMC clinical examination’s structure and content.
  • The opening of a new test centre for the AMC clinical examination in early 2025 which will increase our capacity to examine international medical graduates.

The AMC has also completed a large research project with international medical graduates and other stakeholders to better understand the barriers to, and enablers of, international medical graduates successfully navigating the pathways to practise in Australia.

This project has helped us identify some further priority initiatives including:

  • Working with other partners to improve the information available to international medical graduates, including identifying gaps in information.
  • Developing additional resources to support international medical graduates prepare for AMC examinations and targeting resources to support working in the Australian context.
  • Providing detailed information to international medical graduates on their exam performance to help them target their learning.

The AMC looks forward to continuing to work with health ministers, colleges, Aphra and the Medical Board on these important workforce reforms.