CICM is a registration body, not a gatekeeper at entry: you cannot apply to the college until you have already done 6 months in a CICM-accredited ICU (Foundation Training), so the sequence is get an ICU job → do 6 months → register.
Typical start years; people vary by a year or two. Diamonds are exams. Stage list and sources in the pathway tab.
2/5 to get on; 5/5 to finish. No college match or interview at entry — eligibility is 6 months of accredited ICU plus 3 referees. Ratings are the encoder's 1–5 call from college numbers and r/ausjdocs; applicant-to-place ratios double-count people who apply in several states. Evidence rows are in getting selected.
No interview, no ranking, no published CV cut-off. Entry is easy by Australian standards; the exams (roughly half fail per sitting) and a tight consultant job market are where people fall off. Median time to fellowship is 7–8.5 years against a 6-year minimum.
If what you're saying is true, the most mind blowing thing is that this was never seriously discussed or modelled by CICM. It's probably too late for ICU, but other specialties need to pay close attention and review these issues early before sleep-walking into this within the next decade.
Do the SRMO year, trust me. If you are looking for a job in ICU, you want them to have seen you as a competent SRMO rather than an incompetent reg.
People fail all the time. The ICU primary exam overallpass rate is 30%, the fellowship exam pass rate is 15%.
Having done a fair bit of icu work - I’d suggest trying for an icu srmo instead. Will give you sufficient experience and support. It’ll also count for your foundation training time (6 months) in icu to allow you to apply for training.
All 71 curated quotes by topic, trajectories and threads.
cicm.org.au for the facts and summary, read 12 Sept 2026 · rating and pathway encoded by hand from the same sources · quotes are verbatim r/ausjdocs comments, community view not policy
Number = distinct authors who said it; dashed chips are single reports (under three authors). Hover or long-press a chip for the why.
Stages: cicm.org.au, pathways.pmcv.com.au · terms: r/ausjdocs term-strategy collection, counted by distinct author, community view not policy
"Mandatory" is the college's word. Amber "community" rows are what the sub says panels actually want.
Seventh mandatory course area unresolved from the rendered page (likely trauma/EMST) — verify against the Regulations.
PMCV's pathway page lists $1,800 annual / $4,200 exams — last updated Dec 2024, out of date. Use CICM's schedule.
Canberra Health Services JMO campaign; ICU SRMO / Critical Care SRMO streams (PGY3+). Canberra Hospital is Gen24 with Neuro+Cardio+Trauma.
College registration is national with two intakes a year since 2025. Application windows are two weeks long; missing one costs six months. This runs independently of the state job campaigns below.
Outcome months (May / Nov) are given as first-of-month placeholders; CICM publishes the month only.
HETI/NSW Health statewide JMO campaign. Critical Care (Anaesthesia, EM, ICU) is its own round. Titles: RMO / SRMO / Critical Care SRMO (CCSRMO) / ICU SRMO / Trainee / Advanced Trainee / Transition Year Provisional Fellow / Postgraduate Fellow. Non-centralised ICU recruitment leaves regional units short — direct approaches to unit directors work in October.
Direct to health service; no ICU-specific pathway confirmed. Top End and Central Australia RMO/SRMO campaigns include a PGY3+ Critical Care stream (ICU/anaes/ED/Katherine ED). Royal Darwin is Gen12 with Trauma + Neuro + AP(12) + Rural endorsements and is chronically recruiting.
No ICU-specific NT recruitment pathway could be confirmed; campaign dates are from secondary trackers.
Queensland Intensive Care Training Pathway (QICTP) — centralised selection and allocation, applied for through the RMO/Registrar campaign with a pathway-specific application form uploaded. Trainees are allocated to an accredited hospital for 6–12 months with rotations curated to cover CICM requirements. Titles: JHO / PHO (Principal House Officer = third or subsequent year after full registration) / Registrar / ICU RMO. Community caveat: average 8.5 years in training on the rotational pathway, less control over location.
QLD pages blocked automated fetches; details come from indexed snippets and third-party mirrors.
SA Health Centralised PGY2 and Beyond EOI (SA MET), then direct to LHN. Titles: RMO / Registrar / SMO. Royal Adelaide is the only SA unit with Gen24 + Neuro + Cardio + Trauma. SA MET's Prevocational Acute and Critical Care program is withdrawn for 2027.
Direct to health service via the Doctors in Training campaign (ICU registrar ads at RHH); no ICU-specific match found. Royal Hobart is Gen24 with Neuro+Cardio+Trauma; Launceston is Gen12.
TAS ICU registrar campaign dates not confirmed; RMO campaign window given.
No ICU-specific statewide match. PMCV runs the PGY2 Match only; Critical Care HMO3 and ICU registrar jobs go direct to each health service, advertised ~Apr–Sep. Titles: HMO2/HMO3, Critical Care HMO, Registrar, Senior Registrar. St Vincent's recruits into its Critical Care pathway 'from a HMO-2 level onwards'.
WA Intensive Care Training Pathway (WAICTP) — separate from centralised RMO recruitment, with its own Selection Committee across 14 sites (FSH, RPH, SCGH, Perth Children's, KEMH, Armadale, Joondalup, Rockingham, WACHS Albany/Bunbury/Geraldton/Northam, RFDS). Covers CICM Phases 0, 1 and 2 and guarantees access to mandatory rotations. Requires three or more years of postgraduate clinical experience. Runs six months out of step with the eastern states — a genuine second bite.
WAICTP publishes 'early March' and 'late April/early May' only; the dates above are approximations of those windows.
Dates drift a week or two each year; the calendar has confirmed vs expected windows.
No published rubric and no interview. Centralised Trainee Selection Panel; tools are a structured CV plus 3 structured references only. Documentary evidence for the CV not required since 2024. Structured CV domain: Relevant personal experiences.
Requirements and rubric: cicm.org.au, reddit.com · state mechanics: canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au, cicm.org.au, health.nsw.gov.au +6 · community rows from r/ausjdocs
Dots are sittings the college has dated; "approx." means only a month was published.
Hollow dots are hearsay — the poster was not citing a figure. A bar spans the components or years quoted; hover for the exact words.
"Cost to get on" is a name-based pick of the one-off fees paid before or at selection. The college schedule is a lifetime-of-training list at each item's own year, not one bill; community amounts overlap it and are never summed. Courses, travel and repeat sittings are the part the sub complains about.
Not shown: 1 suspected astroturf; 1 paid product under three independent authors.
Exams and fees: cicm.org.au, medicalboard.gov.au · claims, prep and costs quoted: r/ausjdocs exams-and-costs collection, community view not policy · paid prep products need three independent non-suspect authors and a free alternative to appear
Scored by the Intensive Care Medicine rules — whether or not the title names the specialty — highest first, closing soonest next.
"Has anyone heard back?" reports on r/ausjdocs, 2023–2026 folded onto one calendar year; dashed line is the official date for the 2027 intake where published.
9 dated reports, weekly bins
7 dated reports, weekly bins
5 dated reports, weekly bins
Jobs: last night's scrape, scored by hand-written rules (no AI) · units and offer reports: r/ausjdocs, counted by distinct author · campaign windows: canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au, health.nsw.gov.au, healthjobs.nt.gov.au +4
Verbatim, one caution beside one encouragement per topic where both exist, the rest folded. Every quote links to the comment.
If what you're saying is true, the most mind blowing thing is that this was never seriously discussed or modelled by CICM. It's probably too late for ICU, but other specialties need to pay close attention and review these issues early before sleep-walking into this within the next decade.
Everyone seems to end up somewhere. Every single one of my colleagues with whom I trained and who finished training ended up in consultant positions somewhere. Some waited for a few years. Many had to move. Most started in short term temporary positions and shifted into permanent positions. Only a handful completed…
Briefly, big fancy centres (RPA, The Alfred etc) are quite competitive but not impossible. Other centres are still competitive but not impossible, it might just require a few fellow years to develop a subspecialty interest that's appealing for hiring. ICU is an expanding speciality both in numbers and scope, and so…
Time to start actively pushing medical students and residents away from icu. Make sure they know how bad it is. They deserve the ability to make informed decisions about their career. Governments will only pay attention when you completely collapse the middle of the pyramid and they can't staff icu anymore
If you want facts: the average Intensivist age is 50, and a little over a 1/3 intend to retire by 2033. There are around 950 intensivists currently working across Australia, and somewhere between 50-60 new fellows per year. They take in just under 200 new trainees per year. This doesn’t account for the increase in ICU…
This issue has been known for at least 10 years. They did some modeling back in 2015-16 and published a report on workforce mismatch. 10 years later nothing has changed.…It is unfortunate that I almost proactively recommend critical care SRMOs to not pursue ICU. It's a shame really because a lot of them are smart and…
Minimal at the moment AFAIK. CICM producing something like 80-100 fellows a year. There aren’t 80-100 jobs a year. I’m in Adelaide, and I reckon we have maybe 100 consultant intensivists across the whole city (2 MTCs, multiple smaller hospitals).
I've started doing this with very promising trainees and it pains me but it is the right thing to do given current jobs climate.
A lot of this is mostly true however the number of ICU trainees has increased 700% in the last 2-3 years. We used to take 35 each intake, it's now 250. Why? The college is bankrupt. Don't do ICU, it's a scam. Source: did ICU, got scammed
Generally poor. You could at one time say there were jobs in regional areas, but even those are drying up. Anything you do get will likely be on a contract basis. I can’t sugar coat it. It’s hard.…It’s very late for this advice, but dual fellowships are golden for ICU consultants.
ICM is a pyramid scheme, and there’s just no way around that. Your average ICU of 14 patients needs 1 intensivist, maybe 1 fellow, 1-2 senior registrars, an assortment of registrars, and then some RMOs. At every stage up the ladder, you need fewer staff. The College can’t resolve this - it can only move the bottleneck…
Icu is not particularly difficult to get on. It is, however, very hard to get a boss job at the other end.…Its easy to get on because they need the night shift cannon fodder, just like ED.
Pgy15ish coming up to first year of core training. Yes I'm a consultant in another specialty. If you want a quick path, it can be done, but average time in training on the Queensland rotational pathway is 8.5 years. Then you probably have to do some fellowships to get those tertiary jobs and so it will be 10 years on…
Don't do icu. Is a great specialty but there is no viable workforce planning and minimal consultant jobs. The college has no regard for the welfare of trainees and takes way too many trainees for consultant positions available. They don't deserve your money and sacrifice.
These numbers suggest 25 net new fellows annually assuming a steady annual rate of retirement in a best case scenario! To absorb 25 new fellows at 0.7 FTE we are talking about five to six pods or ICUs that needs to be created annually across the nation…This is not accounting for the net 150 trainees who will be stuck…
That sounds very normal for NSW CCSRMO jobs. Unfortunately hiring is usually done internally for these competitive roles so your best bet would be your home hospital. Best of luck with your upcoming interview!
Only got 1 CC SRMO interview this year (albeit I only applied for places with 6 months plus), and I got 7 job offers last year lol. I also noticed that the hosp I'm currently CCSRMOing at (I was an external hire) has barely interviewed anyone this year.
The last tertiary centre I worked in had >25 FCICMs apply for every job they advertised - most had either PhDs or overseas fellowships or DDUs. I’m now in my last 6 weeks of training with a consultant anaesthetist job sorted in another tertiary centre. But some of my bosses I directly supervised in ICU…
The exams are one thing, but the consultant job situation in SA, in particular, is dire. CICM produce maybe 80 new FCICMs a year. Adelaide as a whole maybe employs 50, maximum, across public and private. Australia is not adding consultant intensivist posts to the healthcare system at the same rate CICM is producing…
prospective trainees deserved to be informed so that they freely give their consent to provide years of service without guarantee of becoming a consultant. Skirting around the structural issues is, I think, unethical.…CICM trainees are not given the courtesy of predictability. There's always one more hoop to jump…
People fail all the time. The ICU primary exam overallpass rate is 30%, the fellowship exam pass rate is 15%.
Yes the exams are brutal, but I passed them both first sit with about a year of prep each (so just to say that is absolutely possible) - I'd guess around half of my peers would be in the same boat anecdotally in the large centres I've trained in.…I've finished up and have a job at the end, albeit am and have always…
* CICM part 1 pass rate ranges 40-50% (lowest ever was 2007, 14% passed)
ICU exam is hard, part 1 pass rate 45-55% part 2 pass rate 30-60%, after typically 8yrs training. At the recent ASM the college acknowledged that >50% of trainees do not complete training.
The dual training pathway sadly died in 2014 due to stupid decisions by CICM as a reaction to the terrible completion rate of training (only 20% of trainees who joined CICM completed training, which they blamed on the ‘easy’ dual training pathways with ANZCA, ACEM, RACP and RACS exams counting). Thankfully this is…
Did it all, enjoyed it. Long shifts long hours but very satisfying.…Swapped over to anaesthetics now, everyone I trained with is in the sad stage of failing the fellowship for the the third time, or passing and jumping onto the conveyer belt of years of post grad fellowships and unlimited unpaid overtime to get that…
As for breadth of material I'm actually convinced the ED fellowship is harder than ICU (before I saw the light I thought I'd do ED so volunteered to be a mock patient for their OSCE). And they only get 3 attempts! (ICU is 5)
There is no way around this and no words I can give you that will dispel the <60% average pass rates across the last 10-20 years for both exams.
You must be registered as a trainee with CICM to apply to sit part one. You can't apply to CICM until you've got 6 months ICU experience so you can't sit part one until you've finished your foundation block.…The pass rate is about 40-60% depending on the year. There's no shame if you fail, it's almost expected. If you…
Getting onto ICU is easy, getting off is hard. There's is a large workforce requirement for ICU regs to fill the roster and unlike anaes the jobs aren't monopolised by training networks. … The primary exam is hard. The fellowship exam is harder. Up till last year there wasn't even a syllabus for the fellowship exam.…
You're expected to have 6m ICU time (or 2x 10 week terms) prior to applying, but subsequently none will be accredited until you pass your primary exam. Following that, you need one full year of adult ICU before being eligible to sit the fellowship exam. After two years of adult ICU and successful fellowship exam you…
Pre dual training having done most of my anaesthetics time early in my ICU training- got RPL for ICU SSU and nothing else. Saved no time. Maybe the primary if they bring out dual training, but they were meant to do it this year and delayed it so who knows.
SRMO. You just don’t know enough medicine as a PGY3 to safely function as an ICU registrar. The hard part of the job is the outreach stuff where you deal with patients on the ward, ED or PACU.…Being a good ICU registrar isn’t just about being able to intubate or put lines in. It’s about being able to make decisions…
Do the SRMO year, trust me. If you are looking for a job in ICU, you want them to have seen you as a competent SRMO rather than an incompetent reg.
Why would you skip SRMO and go straight to registrar? It doesn’t speed up your training time in any way, you still need to meet the college requirements which aren’t dependent on having a “registrar” job or not.
Having done a fair bit of icu work - I’d suggest trying for an icu srmo instead. Will give you sufficient experience and support. It’ll also count for your foundation training time (6 months) in icu to allow you to apply for training.
I used to be an ICU registrar, and I left because the consultant job market is abysmal, the work is fun but stressful, and the pay isn't that much better than comparable consultant jobs (including RG).
Regional units are often your best bet. If they still do non-centralised recruitment in NSW this leaves regional units short all the time but other states are similar. NSW: Coffs, port Macquarie, Lismore, Orange QLD: Hervey Bay, Bundaberg, Mackay I’m sure there are equivalents in the other states
Junior icu reg roles are generally easy to get (they need the nights cannon fodder).
There are usually quite a few icu srmo positions available - most people gunning for anaesthetics want the critical care srmo positions for anaesthetic time, whereas ICU trainees are unlikely to need the time straight away (it’s mandatory as part of their training anyway) for applications, and it is not needed by CICM…
Would recommend discussing with people currently working there and picking one asap! They’re only around for 48 hours
Even once you fellow as a surgeon/ICU/ED etc you work in a public hospital to maintain skills and only occasionally do ADF time
JHC ICU is in my opinion the best RMO job in the country.
I have an offer for critical care ED stream in eastern health and ED HMO in Monash.
Every anaes SRMO/Reg at Wollongong can tell you about the ICU.
ICM: lots of jobs as a registrar, easy to get into CICM training; almost no jobs as a consultant, though, with multiple fellows hanging around the two major centres (RAH and FMC) hoping for a substantive consultant post.
If you're interested in pursuing training in Queensland, several hospitals offer Critical Care RMO/SHO positions, such as Mater, Townsville, GCUH.
As above - considering applying to Joondalup for an RMO position in ED/ICU.
Getting on to ICU training is very easy, just need 6 months of ICU experience (can be 2x 3-month terms) with 2x CICM consultants and a senior ICU nurse as references.
do your homework before you start the CICM training. The most logical approach to the training is to have started the primary prep with the aim to finish in your foundation year/whatever first bit of non-icu time you get allocated - anaesthetics/medicine are both reasonable options. It makes little sense to do icu reg…
Hey OP. I’m feeling you. I was also in a position of being a Crit Care SRMO with a fairly strong application and applied for independent anaesthetic jobs + SRMO jobs as a back up. Despite a few independent interviews and SRMO interviews I’ve landed up in a similar situation to yourself - currently nothing solidly…
I did an ICU term PGY 2 and then an ICU SRMO year PGY3. Most people do a crit care SRMO year where they rotate through anaesthestics ICU and ED. Both are valid with pluses and minuses to each. ICU training is LONG. Its one of the longest. If you're sure you want to do ICU, I'd strongly suggest doing a crit care year…
IMO you should try to have at least 1 term on ICU or Anaesthetics & 1 term on ED before stepping up.
With the first of the Victorian hospitals opening their PGY3 + critical care application (Royal Melbourne Hospital, due in 2 weeks), I thought I would make a post to offer knowledge about the VIC hospitals which offer PGY3 critical care positions.
Going to pull you up on RPA ICU - they are extremely supportive for resitters but it does require the trainees to put in the extra time that is literally *offered* to them by the senior medical staff.
This is the only way wollongong icu manages to recruit at all beyond imgs.
I was Intern and Resident in Wollongong (albeit as an interstate applicant, so had no skin in this ‘stack’ business), before taking up a critical care job in Western Sydney then getting onto Scheme training.
I noticed that RFDS lists FRACGP as a qualification for retrieval medical officers, but I'm not sure how competitive an application would be compared to FACEM or CICM.
They all come out Monday and at the same time, from my exp as a pgy2 last year. Other offers can come out sooner after e.g. I got a nepean offer 3 days after initial offers last year.
Again run by each individual hospital ICU (FSH, RPH, SCGH) with the preference often given to their ICU resis and registrars, but with chucking your name on a waitlist
According to NSW HEALTH, offers should all be released September 1st (or during the 1st week of September). Good Luck! 🫡
Sitting the primary early is good, but it definitely doesn't have to be first sitting after joining the college. The consultants will put more effort into helping you prepare when you've got the title of reg in my experience
I've worked in other ICUs that are more collegiate generally. But I'll leave you with this cheeky observation: You see dozens of anaesthetists that started ICU training then jumped across. You don't see many/any intensivists that started anaesthetics and bounced across.
Anaesthetics: more money, much better lifestyle, and actual consultant jobs. ICU: Very hard work, harder exams, few boss jobs, worse lifestyle, less money. You have to love the latter, especially if you're already going to be/are a boss in the former.
Yes St George ICU did have its issues a few years back, but that was partly due to a culture of bullying, rather than incompetence.
Bendigo ICU is a lovely unit, roster is slightly random arrangement but typically maxes out at 4-5 shifts in a row
ICU made competitive by people wanting to get into Anaesthesia training. Take out the rotational folks coming from ED and IM you really have a few trainees and less in the last few years due to the concerns regarding boss jobs post fellowship.Anyone keen on ICU training can literally walk in from PGY3.
Western Health has a critical care HMO job that includes an anaes rotation but they’re usually quite competitive and go to internal applicants.
Congrats on the offers. I would go where a stronger teaching program exists. I was a big promoter of regional experience but more often you end up a service delivery workhorse with limited career support other than knowing your consultants well enough to recall their kid names.
This happened to me years ago after PGY2, I was in Perth so there was a pretty small pool and I was panicking. I put out a bunch of applications interstate and had 3 interviews and 2 offers by the time I accepted an ED role in Adelaide. I think it all took a month or two. I got heaps of experience, I’ve since moved…
Tbh that’s a bit of a rip off from Greenslopes, other private hospitals with fewer (usually ICU) registrars pay $250k per year for a pgy 3
4 people, counts not rates.
I remember when I was an SRMO a nurse prac with over 15 year's experience asked me how to dose Augmentin for a 10yr old who weighed 30kg.comment ↗
Not OP but 30s, currently unaccredited reg. Started thinking about egg freezing, just never got around to it. What's the process like? And expense? Thanks!comment ↗
And I'm now an ICU PHO routinely lines people and gets bloods without spraying the room. You learn.comment ↗
PGY 5 here..I have news for you, some rotations, some terms, some PHO/Reg jobs are exactly like that. Sometimes worse. Had terms as an intern where i worked 12/14 days (7am start, officially 3:30pm f…comment ↗
2024 intern here, always had my sights set on physicians training but 2 years of clinical rotations has eroded at my confidence and just wondering if I have a solid enough knowledge base to make it t…comment ↗
Currently a PGY2 and considering ICU as a career! Context: Completed ALS2 and BASIC. Looks like I’ll only have a total of 6 months ED experience by the end of this year. No anaesthetics or ICU time…comment ↗
Just the one interview at my home hospital this year for CC SRMO which seemed like an obligatory interview for spending junior years here. I am following the CC SRMO offers thread and cried after the…comment ↗
I'm an ICU senior reg with 1 toddler. Echoing the posts above, it's hard. But medicine at baseline is hard and as a parent you have a unique skillset that will help you adapt and overcome. I had my…comment ↗
I'm 35 and PGY10. Not BPT though. Hoping to get my letters within the next 2 years (as I'm about to go on mat leave with my 2nd baby soon!).comment ↗
also a final year CICM and a mum of 2 kids so felt compelled to post. My overall 2c is that it's hard, but not necessarily harder than other specialties, just with different challenges. Hours: Yes…comment ↗
Reconstructed from what people said about themselves on a public forum. Self-report only; no verification against any register. Survivorship and self-selection are severe (people post when things go wrong and when they get on, rarely in between). Handles are public usernames; nothing here is combined with any off-platform data.
r/ausjdocs comments and posts, hand-curated from the anaesthetics-icu, cross-cutting, term-strategy, exams-and-costs, employers, trajectories, state-campaigns, missed-cycle-and-mobility collections; scores as at the dump · community view, not policy
Knowledge rows last loaded 13 Sept 2026, encoded by hand from the sources linked on each panel; no AI wrote any of it. Compare specialties · calendar · all guides.