Board publishes report of external review of the specialist medical colleges’ assessment of international medical graduates

27 Apr 2018

An independent review of specialist medical colleges’ assessment of international medical graduates (IMGs) for specialist recognition has found areas of excellence, widespread compliance with guidelines set by the Medical Board of Australia and identified some areas for improvement.

The Board commissioned the independent review in 2017 in line with one of the recommendations of the Snowball review of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme.

The independent review by Deloitte Access Economics, was designed to evaluate and report on the performance of specialist colleges in applying standard assessments of IMG applications and to see whether colleges are meeting benchmarks set by the Board for timeframes for completion of assessments.

The report of the review and the Board’s response to the recommendations are published on the Guides and reports page on the Board’s website.

The Board will establish a working group of its National Specialist IMG Committee, to review all elements of the Good practice guidelines for the assessment of international medical graduates (the Good practice guidelines), advise how best to further improve the assessment process for specialist IMGs and address the findings of the review.

The working group, that will include external appointees and college representatives, will start work in mid 2018 and will consult widely with the profession, the community and other stakeholders as it progresses.

Accepting the report, Medical Board Chair, Dr Joanna Flynn AM, thanked the specialist colleges for their constructive co-operation with the review.

'The review was thorough and the outcomes will help further improve specialist IMG assessment in Australia long term,' Dr Flynn said.

'We are pleased that Deloitte found there is such a high level of compliance by colleges with the Board’s Good practice guidelines and encourage colleges to take the opportunities for shared learnings and progressive improvements,' Dr Flynn said.

The Board will provide regular updates on this work, including terms of reference and membership of the working group.