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Long runway, study group, and plan for more than one attempt. The ANZCA primary is 150 MCQs, 15 SAQs and three vivas, with separate hurdles — you must pass the MCQ, reach 42.7% on the SAQ and 50% combined SAQ plus viva 1. It costs $6,590 a sitting; CICM's First Part is $5,780 23.
The shape of it. ANZCA's primary is sat during Basic Training, not before — you must already be a registered trainee who has completed Introductory Training 1. The written is 150 MCQs in 150 minutes and 15 SAQs in 150 minutes; the viva is three 20-minute stations. The hurdles are separate: pass the MCQ, at least 42.7% on the SAQ, and at least 50% on the combined SAQ and viva 1. 2026 written sittings were 24 February and 18 August, with vivas in May (Melbourne) and October (Brisbane) 1. CICM runs its own First Part on a parallel calendar 3.
It is expensive and it fails people. ANZCA charges $6,590 for the primary on top of a $3,930 annual training fee 2; CICM charges $5,780 for each of First and Second Part 3. CICM publishes per-sitting examiner reports rather than a headline rate, and secondary aggregation puts the First Part near 45% 4 — so on the ICU side, roughly half the room fails each time.
What people who passed actually did. Six hundred to a thousand hours over about a year is the modal figure, with a three-month revision run of daily timed SAQs 5. Study in a group: departments that track this say it materially raises the pass rate, and doing it alone is possible but a long lonely slog 6. Write to a scoring structure for a borderline answer in two minutes rather than chasing a perfect answer in ten 6. Do the college feedback session if you fail; people who skip it regret it 6.
The part nobody tells you before you start. Multiple attempts are normal, not a verdict. ANZCA's own college president has said publicly that he passed on his third go 6. Plenty of good anaesthetists have needed two or three 6. Budget for a resit fee and, if you can, some protected time — that is a more honest plan than assuming one clean run.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
One piece of advice we always give trainees where we are is that they significantly increase their chance of passing by being in a study group.
It's a really hard exam and many outstanding anaesthetists have had more than one or two goes at it.
Probably around 600-700 hours over the course of 1 year
Our college president David Story is very open about the fact he passed the primary on his third attempt.
Asked 68 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 r_ausjdocs_posts.jsonl (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /primary (exam|examination)|(ANZCA|CICM|FRACP|RANZCP|RANZCR|part 1|part I).{0,25}(exam|primary|written|viva)/i. Quotes were taken from the AMA thread by trainees who had just passed and from the highest-scoring replies in a failure thread, so the study-method advice sits beside the fact that repeat attempts are normal.