12/10/2025
As a GP I wanted to take a moment to clear up an oft repeated misconception in 60 Minutes Australia confronting story into the poorly regulated world of Cosmetic Surgery.
Many times throughout the story, it was stated that these Cosmetic Surgeons have been able to carry out this work with only a ‘basic medical degree’. It was also stated that having been sanctioned by the regulatory body AHPRA, these Cosmetic Surgeons were banned from further surgical practice but could, however, practice as GP’s ‘with supervision’.
What is intimated here is that GPs are synonymous with doctors who have only a basic medical degree. That general practice is the ‘default’ for new doctors who haven’t ‘specialised’ yet. And that even a ‘bad/naughty’ doctor can still work as a GP.
Unfortunately, such attitudes have contributed to GPs being devalued as medical professionals despite being Specialists fellows themselves.
So, let me clarify something.
In Australia, a basic medical degree can take anywhere between 4-6 years to obtain, depending on whether the student obtained an undergraduate or graduate position in Medical School. They will graduate with a basic medical degree at this point.
Following on from graduating with this basic medical degree, the doctors are provisionally registered for practice. However, all doctors must complete 12 months of in-hospital internship, with specific compulsory terms in Emergency Medicine, Surgery and General Medicine, in order to obtain general registration.
After completing the internship year, what then follows is a period of residency. This can range from a year to several years, as long as it takes for a doctor to decide on their path to specialisation.
For those who want to specialise in General Practice, the bare minimum residency is 1 year in addition to the internship. However, given the GP training program has strong requirements for exposure to paediatric medicine, most GPs will need to do anywhere between 1-3 years to achieve this requirement.
Having then completed the residency years, GPs apply to the General Practice Training college. This requires an examination and clinical exam (OSCE) to earn a place on the program.
The doctor is now termed a GP registrar. They now embark on a training program to achieve fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. This training program is a minimum 3 years of full time training (1 hospital year + 2 in community practice).
After completing the minimum training time, the GP registrar now is eligible to sit the Fellowship examinations. For the record there are THREE exams they need to pass to achieve fellowship.
1. The Key Feature Problem (KFP): a soul destroying 4 hour written examination that has a pass rate in the 50-60% range.
2. The Applied Knowledge Test (AKT): a slightly less soul destroying 4hr and 45 min multiple choice examination.
When BOTH the above have been successfully passed, then the GP registrar is eligible to sit the third exam
3. The Clinical Competency Exam (CCE) which aims to examine clinical skills in practice in the style of an OSCE.
After ALL three exams have been successfully passed, the GP registrar can now apply for Fellowship of the RACGP (so long as they have also completed their ongoing requirement towards Basic and Advanced Life Support training). They now use the post nominals of FRACGP.
Having achieved Fellowship, the GP is now registered with AHPRA as a ‘Specialist’ medical practitioner, reflecting the fact that they are Specialist Generalists. Non-GP Specialists, like cardiologists and dermatologists, are Specialist Partialists.
Now the GP Specialist must maintain a certain number of professional CPD points every three years, to maintain that registration, as well as continually upskilling and revising best practices guidelines.
As you can see, a GP is not someone with a ‘basic medical degree’, nor is a GP the default setting out of Medical School for those who can’t/won’t specialise.
As a GP I am equally appalled at what I saw yesterday, which was a gross departure from accepted standards. It needs to be scrutinised and regulated. But the fact that these doctors have been allowed to work as GP’s under supervision is due to the fact that they didn’t just have ‘basic medical degrees’. They had Specialist registration as FRACGPs.
The continued denigration of the General Practice specialty in the media and by the community needs to stop.
- Dr Sara FRACGP MBBS PhD BSc (Hons)
