← all questions · GP and rural generalism · General practice and rural generalism guide
Choose on where you want to work, not on prestige. FRACGP is 3 years FTE and selects on a single situational-judgement test 12. FACRRM is 4 years, requires 12 months in MMM4–7, and selects on referees, five essays and a six-station MMI 34. Both now lead to the same protected Rural Generalist title 5.
The structural difference. FRACGP is 3 years FTE — GPT1, GPT2, GPT3 and an Extended Skills term, 26 weeks each 1. FACRRM is 4 years FTE: 3 years Core Generalist Training (12 months primary care, 3 months emergency, 3 months secondary care, 12 months in MMM4–7) plus at least 12 months of Advanced Specialised Training, 24 months if that AST is surgery 36. RACGP's rural fellowship, FRACGP-RG, is also 4 years and is awarded in addition to FRACGP 7.
Selection is where they actually differ. RACGP runs one national assessment — the Casper situational judgement test, $190, no referees 2. ACRRM wants referees, a written suitability assessment of five essay questions of at least 250 words each, then a six-station MMI, against criteria that are explicitly rural-biographical 4. If your CV is genuinely rural, ACRRM lets you show it; if it isn't, five essays won't hide that.
Dates for the 2027 training year. RACGP's main intake ran March–April 2026 and every place went in round one — the second round was cancelled 8. ACRRM runs four intakes a year; its 2027 Semester 2 Intake 2 opened 4 August 2026 and closes 26 October 2026, with MMIs in February 2027 4. Fees: ACRRM $190 application, $500 on offer, $430 membership 4; RACGP charges nothing to apply but $190 for Casper 2.
The thing that changed the argument. Rural Generalist Medicine was approved as a specialist field in September 2025, and from March 2027 "specialist Rural Generalist" is a protected title reachable through either college 5. So the end point is the same and the question is genuinely about temperament and postcode.
What the sub fights about is exams. ACRRM's StAMPS is the recurring complaint; the defence is that it's a fairer test of rural practice than the old RACGP KFP. Both positions are below. Nobody in the corpus argues the two fellowships get you different jobs in the bush.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
If you don't want to work rural then no it's probably not advisable to sign up with the college of rural and remote medicine
StAMPS is tough, but not ridiculous. I think it's a relatively fair exam and covers a broad range of RG, and it doesn't have ridiculous marking criteria like the old RACGP KFP.
RACGP-RG takes longer but has more straightforward assessments. ACRRM is six months shorter but, as an example, the ED StAMPS pass rate was close to 30% at one stage. Both get you the same credentials in Queensland.
The main reason why I didn't choose ACRRM is because of their exams. I know too many fantastic doctors who should have Fellowed years ago, but stamps has held them up because it's a ridiculous exam.
For support, preparation, training and flexibility go with ACRRM. If you want the path of least resistance, go with RACGP.
Asked 115 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 /(\bRACGP\b|\bACRRM\b|\bAGPT\b).{0,45}(vs|versus|\bv\b|or|compar|differen|which|choos|better)|(vs|versus|or|which|choose|better|differen).{0,35}(\bRACGP\b|\bACRRM\b)|\bACRRM\b/i. Quotes are the highest-scoring comments inside the college-comparison threads, deliberately balanced so the StAMPS complaint and its rebuttal sit next to each other, plus the top comment telling a metro-only applicant not to take an ACRRM place.