Standards and reports

Expedited Specialist pathway

The Expedited Specialist pathway is a fast-track pathway to specialist registration for SIMGs with qualifications on the Expedited Specialist pathway: accepted qualifications list.

SIMGs apply directly to the Medical Board for specialist registration. More information is on the Expedited Specialist pathway page.

The Board releases monthly summary reports of data on Expedited Specialist pathway applications and registrations. The first report was published in April 2025. Summary report data is collected by Ahpra.

Latest monthly summary reports

• Expedited Specialist pathway – Summary report – May 2025 (PDF, 189 KB)
• Expedited Specialist pathway – Summary report – April 2025 (PDF, 186 KB)

Specialist pathway

The Board has developed Standards: Specialist medical college assessment of specialist international medical graduates. These Standards support specialist medical colleges in conducting assessments of SIMGs and explain what the Board expects of colleges when they are assessing SIMGs.

• Standards: Specialist medical college assessment of specialist international medical graduates (PDF, 409KB)

Specialist medical colleges’ Specialist pathway reports

From 1 July 2014, specialist medical colleges report their Specialist pathway activity directly to the Board.

Reporting is annual by calendar year. The Board has published the data commencing from the first full calendar year of reporting (2015).

• Report on Specialist medical colleges specialist pathway data 1 January 2024 – 31 December 2024 (PDF, 832KB)

2024 Summary reports

The Board now also publishes a one-page summary of data on the Specialist pathway.

• Specialist medical colleges specialist pathway data - All colleges - 2024 (PDF, 396KB)
• Australasian College of Dermatologists (ACD) - 2024 (PDF, 136KB)
• Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) - 2024 (PDF, 175KB)
• Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine (ACRRM) - 2024 (PDF, 172KB)
• Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians (ACSEP) - 2024 (PDF, 130KB)
• Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA) - 2024 (PDF, 132KB)
• College of Intensive Care Medicine of Australia and New Zealand (CICM) - 2024 (PDF, 133KB)
• Royal Australasian College of Dental Surgeons (RACDS) - 2024 (PDF, 130KB)
• Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) - 2024 (PDF, 133KB)
• Royal Australasian College of Medical Adminisliators (RACMA) - 2024 (PDF, 129KB)
• Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) - 2024 (PDF, 135KB)
• Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) - 2024 (PDF, 134KB)
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) - 2024 (PDF, 133KB)
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obsteliicians & Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) - 2024 (PDF, 134KB)
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychialiists (RANZCP) - 2024 (PDF, 134KB)
• Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Radiologists (RANZCR) - 2024 (PDF, 133KB)
• Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia (RCPA) - 2024 (PDF, 133KB)

External review of specialist medical colleges’ assessment of international medical graduates (2017)

Recommendation 25 of The Independent review of the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme for health professionals was:

The Medical Board of Australia to evaluate and report on the performance of specialist colleges in applying standard assessments of International Medical Graduate applications and apply benchmarks for timeframes for completion of assessments.

In response to this recommendation, the Medical Board commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to undertake an external review of the performance of the specialist medical colleges in their assessment of SIMGs.

Final report

• External review of the specialist medical colleges’ performance – specialist international medical graduate assessment process (PDF, 3.54MB)