medical schools in Australia

[Monica D]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Has anyone applied to medical schools in Australia? If so, how is the application and interview process different from US schools?

 

[wysdoc]

Here's the forum where you will find threads about Australian schools. Australasia and Oceania
There's also UQ/Ochsner in which you complete the first 2 years in Queensland and the clinical years in New Orleans, but your degree will be deemed a foreign medical degree at the end.

 

[Wolvvs]

For the most part, Australian schools evaluate you on your GPA and MCAT only, with the exception of a few portfolio schools they do not care about anything else including extracurriculars or personal statement. If you meet their requirements, they will offer you an interview, and if you interview well you can generally be admitted. If you have a good MCAT, it is not difficult to get admitted to most Australian schools.

Why Australia though, what's your goal with this? If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice. I'm a current student in the UQ-Ochsner program that wysdoc mentioned and also was accepted to several Australian schools. Happy to answer any specific questions you have.

 

[lymphocyte]

Has anyone applied to medical schools in Australia? If so, how is the application and interview process different from US schools?

I applied from North America. I'm now a consultant in Australia and a senior lecturer (like an associate professor) at one of medical schools here.

The application process is very different in the sense that it's criteria driven. If you meet the criteria, you will be offered a standardized interview. The criteria are oriented toward rankings based on GPA, MCAT, and then interview performance.

It's also easier to get into medical school and much harder to complete fellowship. For example, the emergency medicine fellowship exam has had a pass rate as low as 38%.

Overall, I think the training is more humane, and I'm so glad I trained here. It was one of the best decisions of my life.

 

[at2025]

For the most part, Australian schools evaluate you on your GPA and MCAT only, with the exception of a few portfolio schools they do not care about anything else including extracurriculars or personal statement. If you meet their requirements, they will offer you an interview, and if you interview well you can generally be admitted. If you have a good MCAT, it is not difficult to get admitted to most Australian schools.

Why Australia though, what's your goal with this? If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice. I'm a current student in the UQ-Ochsner program that wysdoc mentioned and also was accepted to several Australian schools. Happy to answer any specific questions you have.

Would you please clarify on the part "If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice"? I'm trying to search for more infos for my son before we make a huge life changing decision to send him to Australia. We would love him to come back to Canada or US where it's close to home.

 

[Wolvvs]

Would you please clarify on the part "If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice"? I'm trying to search for more infos for my son before we make a huge life changing decision to send him to Australia. We would love him to come back to Canada or US where it's close to home.

Yeah sure! If he's a US citizen or green card holder, UQ-Ochsner is definitely the best option for returning to North America. If he's Canadian, UQ is probably one of the better schools for making it back to Canada or the US given the size of the Canadian cohort, so there's a lot of support. But it's still difficult, and going to an Australian school, you have to be aware that the only option available to you may be to remain in Australia (outside of UQ-Ochsner), at least for training.

UQ posts their international cohort outcomes here. You can see the Canadian match outcomes, and you can also see that nearly all but not all Canadians choose to remain in Australia for internship. International graduate employment outcomes - Medical School - University of Queensland

If he's considering other schools, I would strongly recommend reaching out to them and asking them to put you all in contact with a recent graduate who matched in the US or Canada. There tends to be less support for going off the beaten path at other schools, and he will need to navigate a lot by himself. It will help a lot to talk to someone who's gone through the process and tell you about what needs to be done.

 

[at2025]

Yeah sure! If he's a US citizen or green card holder, UQ-Ochsner is definitely the best option for returning to North America. If he's Canadian, UQ is probably one of the better schools for making it back to Canada or the US given the size of the Canadian cohort, so there's a lot of support. But it's still difficult, and going to an Australian school, you have to be aware that the only option available to you may be to remain in Australia (outside of UQ-Ochsner), at least for training.

UQ posts their international cohort outcomes here. You can see the Canadian match outcomes, and you can also see that nearly all but not all Canadians choose to remain in Australia for internship. International graduate employment outcomes - Medical School - University of Queensland

If he's considering other schools, I would strongly recommend reaching out to them and asking them to put you all in contact with a recent graduate who matched in the US or Canada. There tends to be less support for going off the beaten path at other schools, and he will need to navigate a lot by himself. It will help a lot to talk to someone who's gone through the process and tell you about what needs to be done.

Thank you very much for replying. We're Canadian. He got the offers from Griffith and Flinders for Undergrad Direct Entry MD (6 years). We're debating whether it's worth it to send him too far away; moreover, there are so many unknowns in the end (like the matching back to Canada or US). The offers that he got seem too good to be true.

 

[Wolvvs]

Thank you very much for replying. We're Canadian. He got the offers from Griffith and Flinders for Undergrad Direct Entry MD (6 years). We're debating whether it's worth it to send him too far away; moreover, there are so many unknowns in the end (like the matching back to Canada or US). The offers that he got seem too good to be true.

Ok got it, I saw your other post as well. I'm assuming by too good to be true, you mean the fact that he got offers without needing amazingly competitive stats? Assuming you went through official channels then these are real offers. I got offers from both of those schools as well. They will get you to the doctor of medicine, but come with some very obvious drawbacks.

• Cost: these schools are expensive, and don't really offer any sort of financial assistance. You'd need to finance the education yourself through your own money or through loans, I don't know what's available to you in Canada but I do know there are options.
• Difficulty with returning to North America:
  • Those two schools exist primarily to train doctors to work in Australia, and returning to NA will require work above and beyond what classmates are doing. My school has a significant North American cohort with around 1/5 of the class in a cohort designed to return to the US, so that path is well-supported for interested Canadians or even Australians. I had so many non-US classmates interested in taking Step 1 of the US Medical Licensing Exam at the end of Year 2 to try to open that path for themselves, and I can't think of a single one who was able to stick it out to the end when it wasn't required of them. I think Canada has a similar set of exams that are not quite as extensive/grueling but still require substantial amounts of entirely self-driven effort. It's even harder at schools like Flinders or Griffith where your son may be the only student attempting to return to NA.
  • The other aspect of this is specialty choice. The options will be a bit better in the US for international students, especially those who perform particularly well, but as I mentioned above that requires significant extra effort. My understanding is that specialty choice for international students returning to Canada is significantly limited.
  • For those reasons, I think it's important for anyone considering school in Australia to be aware that this path may lead to post-graduate training at a minimum taking place in Australia. To this point, there have not yet been any issues with international graduates of Australian schools getting internships in Australia, but that's always a potential concern, and international students are often sent into quite remote regions for at least the first few years. Also, post-graduate training takes longer in Australia than either Canada or the US, but the working hours are much better over there haha.
• Finally, it's just so far away. There's only so many 25 hour flights you can put yourself through in a year. It may be a bit better if you're in one of the Western provinces but you're potentially looking at 30 hours from Quebec City, and good luck if you live in New Brunswick. Flying back and forth will be a real commitment, and will realistically not happen nearly as often as you would like.

I see that you're looking at direct entry undergraduate programs. Is there a reason you're looking at this path as opposed to the normal route of doing university and then med school in Canada? I know how competitive it is, but if the goal is to practice in Canada, that's by far the better option.