Medical College Examinations

This section provides information on the number of Australian vocational trainees who sat college of faculty examinations in 2012 and the number of trainees who successfully passed.

Current Data

Table 4.36 presents data on the number of trainees sitting their final or fellowship examinations and highlights the considerable variation in the pass rate across medical specialties and even for different examinations required by colleges for a particular specialty. These differences are due, at least in part, to differing assessment processes. Further information on the requirements of each college is provided under the heading ‘Training Assessment’ in Appendix B.

Table 4.36: Vocational trainees sitting a final or fellowship examination: Trainees sitting and proportion passing by medical specialty, 2012

Medical specialty	Examination	Trainees sitting	Trainees passing	Proportion passing (%)
(a) RACGP examination segments can be completed over more than one year. Candidates completing their final exam segment in 2012, may have passed exam components in a previous year. Source: Medical colleges and GPET
Addiction medicine	..	na	na	na
Adult medicine	..	na	na	na
Anaesthesia	Fellowship	280	229	81.8
Anaesthesia - pain medicine	Fellowship	28	22	78.6
Dermatology	Fellowship Written	21	17	81.0
	Fellowship Clinical	18	17	94.4
Emergency medicine		191	116	60.7
General practice	RACGP Fellowship Exam
	AKT	747	672	90.0
	KFP	742	664	89.5
	OSCE	704	651	92.5
	(a)3 segments completed by 2012	718	643	89.6
	ACRRM Fellowship Exam
	MSF	54	54	100.0
	MiniCEX	84	77	91.7
	MCQ	86	70	81.4
	StAMPS	108	63	58.3
Intensive care	General Fellowship exam	84	51	60.7
	Paediatric Fellowship exam	13	11	84.6
Medical administration	Oral Examination	26	16	61.5
Obstetrics and gynaecology	Written	165	129	78.2
	Oral	105	78	74.3
Occupational and environmental medicine	Written	13	10	76.9
	Practical	11	8	72.7
Ophthalmology	RANZCO Advanced Clinical Exam (Written)	34	26	76.5
	RANZCO Advanced Clinical Exam (Clinical)	34	28	82.4
Paediatrics	..	na	na	na
Palliative medicine	..	na	na	na
Pathology	Part II Examinations	103	92	89.3
Psychiatry	..	na	na	na
Public health medicine	Final Program Assessment	11	7	63.6
Radiation oncology	Part II Written and Clinical Vivas	30	19	63.3
Radiodiagnosis	Part II FRANZCR Examination Written and Vivas	91	58	63.7
Rehabilitation medicine	Written	39	36	92.3
	Clinical	40	19	47.5
Sexual health medicine	Exit Assessment Interview	0	0	0.0
Sport and exercise medicine	Written	5	4	80.0
	Clinical	4	4	100.0
Surgery	Fellowship	311	190	61.1
Total		4,900	4,081	83.3

Table 4.37 presents the examination outcomes for the additional examinations that are required as part of some college training programs. The data covers Australian trainees only.

Table 4.37: Vocational trainees undertaking additional examinations: Numbers and proportions passing by medical specialty, 2012

Medical specialty	Examination	Time held	Trainees sitting	Trainees passing	Proportion passing (%)
(a) Trainees passing are those who sat at least one of the Ophthalmic Sciences exams in 2012 and passed. (b) A change exam format was introduced in 2012 and these results reflect the Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) pass rates only. (c) Public health medicine no longer has a Part 1 Exam. Source: Medical colleges and GPET
Addiction medicine	..	..	..	..	..
Adult medicine	Written	Feb	760	531	69.9
	Clinical	July	721	501	69.5
Anaesthesia	Part I Pharmacology written	February/May and July/September	450	..	..
	Part I Pharmacology oral		311	256	56.9
	Physiology written		508
	Physiology oral		361	306	60.2
Dermatology	Clinical sciences	May	0	0
	Pharmacology	May	23	20	87.0
	Clinical sciences	Nov	0	0
	Pharmacology	Nov	5	5	100.0
Emergency medicine	Primary - Anatomy		372	300	80.6
	Primary - Pathology		368	283	76.9
	Primary - Physiology		390	288	73.8
	Primary - Pharmacology		376	274	72.9
General practice - RACGP	0	0	0	0	0.0
General practice - ACRRM	..	..	..	..	..
Intensive care	Part I	May and Nov	32	19	59.4
Medical administration	..	..	..	..	..
Obstetrics and gynaecology	na	..	..	..	..
Occupational and environmental medicine	..	Aug	6	5	83.3
Ophthalmology	(a)Ophthalmic sciences	2	36	30	83.3
	Ophthalmic Basic Competencies and Knowledge	2	28	26	92.9
	Ophthalmic pathology	2	30	29	96.7
Paediatrics	Written	Feb	232	163	70.3
	Clinical	July	237	156	65.8
Palliative medicine	..
Pathology	Basic pathology sciences	April	31	24	77.4
	Part 1	May/August	141	97	68.8
Psychiatry: Basic training	Case Histories		288	221	76.7
	Written		229	160	69.9
	(b)Clinical		159	126	79.2
Public health medicine	Part 1		(c)na	(c)na	(c)na
Radiation oncology	Part 1	Once	21	18	85.7
Radiodiagnosis	Part 1	Twice Yearly	104	76	73.0
Rehabilitation medicine	..	..	..	..	..
Sexual health medicine	..	..	0	0	..
Sport and exercise medicine	na	na	0	0	..
Surgery	Clinical Exam	May and September	237	204	86.1
	Surgical Science Exam (Generic)	May and September	259	201	77.6
	Surgical Science (Specialty Specific)	May and September	329	172	52.3

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Trends

Table 4.38 and Table 4.39 provide data on the numbers passing their final or fellowship examinations and how these vary as a proportion of the total sitting each year from 2008 to 2012. Some specialties show considerable variation from one year to the next in the numbers and proportions passing each year.

This data should be interpreted cautiously, due to various college training requirements and changes to these across the years, and also due to relatively small numbers sitting examinations in some specialties.

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Table 4.39: Proportion of vocational trainees sitting a final or fellowship examination who passed by medical specialty, 2008–2012

Medical specialty	Examination	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012
		Proportion passing (%)
(a) Exam results for adult and paediatric medicine refer to the basic training written and clinical exams. (b) Excludes international medical graduates. (c) These figures are for the Training Program route only. Source: Medical colleges and GPET
Adult medicine(a)	Written	69.9	66.8	68.2	68.7	69.9
	Clinical	75.9	76.9	69.7	70.4	69.5
Anaesthesia		86.0	78.4	84.9	76.9	81.8
Anaesthesia - pain medicine		70.0	83.3	78.9	82.0	78.6
Dermatology	Written	92.3	83.3	85.7	83.3	81.0
	Clinical	91.6	95.2	88.9	95.0	94.4
Emergency medicine		70.2	65.8	66.1	62.9	60.7
General practice		87.9	..	..	..	..
	(c)RACGP Fellowship Exam	..	87.9	92.6	87.2	89.6
	ACRRM Fellowship Exam	..	..	..	..	..
	MSF	..	80.0	80.6	62.5	100.0
	MiniCEX	..	97.4	77.3	87.6	92.0
	MCQ	..	64.7	62.9	77.0	81.0
	StAMPS	..	64.7	78.3	43.2	58.0
Intensive care	General	57.0	55.0	56.4	56.0	60.7
	Paediatric	80.0	83.0	53.8	50.0	84.6
Medical administration		83.3	70.0	86.2	36.0	61.5
Obstetrics and gynaecology	Written	56.8	64.1	64.2	44.5	78.2
	Oral	94.0	82.1	86.5	76.2	74.3
Occupational and environmental medicine	Written	63.2	40.0	33.3	38.5	76.9
	Practical	66.7	45.6	55.6	45.5	72.7
Ophthalmology	Written	..	..	84.0	78.9	76.5
	Clinical	80.0	70.0	76.0	81.6	82.4
Paediatrics(a)	Written	68.4	69.8	65.0	71.2	70.3
	Clinical	75.1	72.2	67.3	67.5	65.8
Pathology		97.0	97.0	89.7	90.0	89.3
Psychiatry		na	na	na	na	na
Public health medicine		80.0	70.0	69.2	54.0	63.6
Radiation oncology		77.7	76.0	78.6	76.0	63.3
Radiodiagnosis		55.1	76.0	67.0	76.2	63.7
Rehabilitation medicine	Written	79.0	66.6	72.4	58.0	92.3
	Clinical	65.0	62.5	66.7	69.0	47.5
Sexual health medicine		..	..	2.0	66.0	na
Sport and exercise	Written	66.6	100.0	44.4	66.7	80.0
medicine	Clinical	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
Surgery(b)		76.5	91.6	80.9	65.7	61.1