← all questions · Hospitals and rotations
Yes for the networked programs, less than the sub thinks for everything else. BPT and crit-care jobs are selected by the network that already employs you, and NSW runs eleven separate BPT networks each with its own panel 12. Victoria's competitive PGY2 streams are filled by internal pre-match offers before the statewide match opens 3.
Where it genuinely matters. RACP does not select basic physician trainees — an accredited network or health service does 2. NSW runs eleven HETI-coordinated BPT networks, each a fixed list of sites, and you apply to each one separately and get exactly one offer after preference matching 12. So "which hospital" is really "which employer's selection committee watches you work for two years".
Victoria makes the same point with dates. Competitive PGY2 streams sit outside the PMCV match and are filled directly by the health services, and internal pre-match offers to current interns close before the statewide match even opens 3. The external pool is smaller than the advertised job count.
What the sub adds. Internal preference gets stated about named employers and named job families, not as a general grumble — Westmead and its SRMO jobs, Monash and its scheme places 45. It also cuts the other way: the hospital with the strongest subspecialty brand is not automatically the best place to get onto its own program 6.
The counter-argument the sub upvotes. Coming from outside means the panel only sees what you choose to show them, and NSW inner-city units have a habit of hiring advanced trainees out of the chaotic, under-preferenced hospitals precisely because those JMOs are more capable by PGY2 4. Two years somewhere that has watched every mistake you ever made is not a free option either.
How to decide. Three questions, in this order: can I get a term in this specialty here, will I get theatre or clinic time in it, and will references from this unit open the next door or is it a closed shop 4? For a less competitive specialty, take the short commute.
No employer publishes its internal-versus-external hire ratio for any JMO job. That number is not published anywhere, in any state.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
Westmead is a cardio powerhouse but they're notorious for leaving their internals in the lurch and having unaccredited hell (multiple years where you dont get on).
In NSW the popular inner city hospitals often hire their advanced trainees from those who completed BPT at chaotic busy hospitals that people don't preference for internship. The logic being the JMOs there are just so much more capable after PGY2.
Can I get a term in this speciality? If so, will I get theatre time (if surgery)? Will my references help secure a registrar job (or is it a closed shop)?
For physician training most hospitals preference their own interns. The BPT exam results vary significantly between different hospitals.
Most places prioritise internal well-thought-of candidates and some hospital fill all their positions that way.
Asked 22 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in the r/ausjdocs dump (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /hospital.{0,45}(matter|choose|better|reputation|prestige|which)|(which|what) hospital/i. Quotes are the highest-scoring comments inside hospital-choice threads, deliberately balanced so the 'coming from outside helps' counter-argument sits next to the internal-preference claim.