Planner
Map your whole pathway in medicine.
Choose how you would get in, add a gap year if you want one, pick the specialty you are drawn to, and plan around family if that is part of your picture. This draws the road from school to consultant, year by year. It runs in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is saved.
Build your pathway
How would you get in?
How long is the medical degree?
Leave it blank to see the plan as year one, year two and so on.
Optional. If you put it in, each stage shows the age you would be.
Between about 9 and 14 years all up, depending on the specialty.
- Years 1 to 5
Medical school
The degree itself, entered from school with the UCAT and an interview. Placement grows every year until the final years are mostly hospital.
- Year 6
Internship
Your first paid year as a doctor, rotating through medicine, surgery and emergency, with general registration at the end of it.
- Year 7
Residency
You keep rotating, build the experience the program asks for, and apply. Competitive programs often take more than one attempt, so read this line as a floor rather than a schedule.
- Years 8 to 12
Specialty training
Registrar years with a specialty college. The exams sit inside these years, not after them. Drawn here as six years from internship to fellowship, which is about the middle. General practice is around three; the most competitive programs can be eight or more.
- From year 13
Fellowship
Fellowship of the college, and consultant work. From here the pathway is whatever you make of it.
What the words mean
- Intern
- A doctor in their first year after graduating. Supervised hospital work on rotation. PGY1, for postgraduate year one.
- Resident
- A doctor in the years after internship who has not yet joined a training program. Also called an RMO or, informally, an unaccredited registrar in some jobs.
- Registrar
- A doctor on a specialty training program, training under a college. The exams happen during these years.
- Fellow
- A doctor who has finished training and holds fellowship of their college, such as FRACGP or FRACS. Confusingly, some hospital jobs just after training are also called fellowships.
- Consultant
- A fellow working as the senior decision-maker for their patients. Also called a specialist, or in general practice, simply a GP.
Why this matters at interview
Interviewers ask why you want to study medicine, and the weakest answers describe a costume rather than a career. Knowing that the road runs through internship, residency and a college program, and roughly how long it takes, shows you have looked at the actual job. You do not need a specialty picked. You need to show you understand what you are signing up for, and that you want it anyway.
Other guides
- Start hereWhat the interview is testing, and how the cycle runs.
- Timeline plannerPut in your interview date and get a week by week plan.
- Practice stationsReal MMI stations with a two minute reading phase and a station clock.
- Formats by universityWhat an MMI, a panel and a structured interview each are.
- For parentsWho your child is working with, and what I will not promise.
If you want a session
Thirty minutes, $40, online, credited against any package you go on to book.