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Arriving in Australia: overseas-trained doctors

Martin B Van Der Weyden and Mabel Chew
Med J Aust 2004; 181 (11): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2004.tb06495.x
Published online: 6 December 2004

Absence of coherence in the way Australia employs overseas-trained doctors is a problem for our healthcare system and for the doctors themselves

In the 1880s, the head of the statistics unit of the Registrar-General’s office in London noted that the shortage of medical practitioners in England was such that there was “imminent danger” that qualified medical care might become “quite inaccessible to vast numbers of people”.1 This shortage was a direct outcome of the Medical Act of 1853, which prescribed strict criteria for the education and registration of medical practitioners. Its effect was to reduce recruitment into the profession because of more formidable courses while concomitantly phasing out unqualified practitioners.1 Now, at the beginning of a new century, we find that the predicament of Victorian England has become a global problem. There is a shortage of doctors worldwide, and Australia is no exception.2-4


  • The Medical Journal of Australia, Sydney, NSW.


Correspondence: 

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  • 9. Birrell RJ. Australian policy on overseas-trained doctors. Med J Aust 2004; 181: 635-639. <eMJA full text>
  • 10. Confederation of Postgraduate Medical Education Councils. Information and resources relating to education and training available to overseas trained doctors in Australia: a national scoping study. Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia, 2004.
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  • 12. World Health Organization. International migration, health and human rights. Geneva: WHO, 2003.
  • 13. Australian Health Ministers’ Conference 2004. National Health Workforce Strategic Framework. Sydney: AHMC May 2004. Available at: www.healthsci.utas.edu.au/pih/pdf/nathea04.pdf (accessed Nov 2004).

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