One national RANZCO round: applications close late March, an asynchronous video interview in April, then network interviews mid-June to mid-July.
Typical start years; people vary by a year or two. Diamonds are exams. Stage list and sources in the pathway tab.
The program ratio (24-29% success) is moderate — the contrarians on r/ausjdocs are closer to the numbers than the doomers. 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.
Step 1 is a 65-point central score (CV 29, referees 6, MMI 30); step 2 is the training network picking from the approved shortlist and making the employment offer. Three hard gates: full registration, citizenship or PR by 1 April, and two years FTE prevocational experience including at least 18 months that is NOT ophthalmology. No pre-entry exam — OBCK is sat in June of year one. ~40 posts nationally, 142 applications for 38 places in 2026 (27%), and the successful cohort averaged 5.2 years since graduation. The bottleneck is the feeder eye job at PGY3-4, not the ratio.
It was too late the moment you weren't born to an ophthalmologist.
Ophthalmologist here, I finished training within the last 5 years so my experience is relatively recent. It's about middle of the pack for surgical subspecialities.
Entrance into Ophthal training in Australia is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder so first things first we need to know if your family history is significant for having Ophthalmologists in it.
Australian Ophthalmologist here. Not at all. Some RANZCO board members consider PhD to be a mark against selecting a candidate (too much time in the lab and not enough at the coalface with patients).
All 84 curated quotes by topic, trajectories and threads.
ranzco.edu 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: ranzco.edu, data.gov.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.
Canberra Health Services JMO campaign runs May 2026 to Feb 2027.
RANZCO central process: applications closed 9:00am AEDT Friday 27 March 2026; AVIs ~April (2025 sitting was Saturday 12 April); network interviews 15 June - 18 July 2026 (SA 15 Jun, NZ 22 Jun, POW & Sydney Eye 24 Jun, WA 29 Jun, VIC 5 Jul, Regionally Enhanced Network 11 Jul, QLD 18 Jul). Fee $1,890 + GST.
Ophthalmology is the only specialty with both an early and a main round in the NSW JMO campaign. Networks: Sydney Eye Hospital (8 posts for 2027, SESLHD) and Prince of Wales (2). Sydney Eye SRMO is the community-designated 'rite of passage'; 'forget about the RNSH SRMO job as it is essentially an unaccredited reg job'. Separate network application required.
7 posts for 2027 (5 Feb / 2 mid-year). Feeder roles appear as Principal House Officer (PHO) in the single RMO & Registrar campaign; applicants must also preference via the RMO campaign in addition to applying to RANZCO.
2 posts for 2027. SALHN (Flinders) advertises '2027 Ophthalmology Junior Service Registrar (RMO)' ($117,483-$183,357) directly on SA Health careers, closing ~September.
8-9 posts for 2027. Royal Victorian Eye & Ear 'Hospital Medical Officer – Ophthalmology and ENT (Wards)' (PGY3-level) is the Victorian rite of passage; Alfred advertises 'Registrar - Ophthalmology (Unaccredited)' (7-8 clinics/wk, 1-2 lists/wk, 1-in-3 on call) directly outside the PMCV match. PGY2 via the PMCV match.
2 posts for 2027. MedCareersWA registrar portal; no publicly advertised unaccredited ophthalmology registrar post was found — treat WA feeder jobs as scarce or recruited informally.
Lions Eye Institute / RPH / SCGH feeder posts could not be evidenced with a live ad.
Dates drift a week or two each year; the calendar has confirmed vs expected windows.
Requirements and rubric: ranzco.edu · state mechanics: canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au, ranzco.edu, health.nsw.gov.au +4 · 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 paid product under three independent authors.
Exams and fees: ranzco.edu, 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 Ophthalmology rules — whether or not the title names the specialty — highest first, closing soonest next.
Faded bars are expected, not confirmed. Only 7 dated offer reports mention Ophthalmology, too few for a chart. Full detail on the calendar.
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.
You should be looking at doing your phd already if you are thinking ophthal. Pretty much all your competition will have one. Edit: The college publishes a list of selection criteria.
Australian Ophthalmologist here. Not at all. Some RANZCO board members consider PhD to be a mark against selecting a candidate (too much time in the lab and not enough at the coalface with patients).
With respect, people who are consultants now had a completely different path through, which it sounds like you should be able to recognise? When I went through it was assumed you'd have a dozen or so publications in a relevant field to do ophthal/derm/plastics.
Ophthal reg here: finish your masters, find a medical/surgical job you can tolerate, keep in contact with a local eye department doing audits/research, and reapply next year for eye jobs.
Do rural placement as much as possible. Jmo in rural place. Publish papers, at mininum masters degree.
The more time I have spent in the system, the more I realise most people have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to selection. There is a lot of repeated rubbish that gets perpetuated without any real knowledge on the subject.
Just in relation to point 4, it’s not so easy now. See below from RANZCO criteria: Please note: To gain any points under Regional Exposure you must meet the threshold of a minimum of two and a half (2.5) points for any experience to count.
Currently an Ophthal JHO and doing my Masters of Ophthal science. I have found it pretty useful so far, it goes through Anatomy, Physiology and Optics then the research component.
Too late? Never… but it’s going to be a reasonably difficult pathway forward. Ophthal, O+G and aneasthetics are probably three of the most competitive specialty programs in Australia.
With respect, I graduated med school within the past decade, not in 1982, and let's just say I'm 'familiar' with the process of selection into training into my field in my state, both last year, and how it will be this year.
For some perspective, there are a handful of people who stumbled at the exact same hurdle you are at now, who then got onto training from BPT or other surgical reg jobs.
I had zero CV at PGY2 as well. It’s hard work to build a competitive application, but it’s definitely doable. And I will say that it was well worth it in the end.
They change the criteria for rural each year. But basically there are very few regional Ophthal let alone rural. So the hope is to encourage them to go there once trained.
difficult one to answer, honestly most people end up getting on eventually (obviously not everyone but i'd say like 70% ish do). Others do GP, ED, Surg, Radiology.
From my understanding of Ophthal speaking to others I've met... generally the door opens from the inside. When she does the Eye SRMO job the connections become more crucial in getting into the program such that the rural points may become moot so your partner may get away with not needing to do rural.
I honestly wouldn’t worry about doing a Masters. Get the research out there and the rest will follow. I know people getting onto the program now with no masters degrees but 10+ research papers, most of which weren’t even in opthal
Look at the points… rural is the easiest points to score if you have time and the hardest if you don’t. As an MD3 you have time! Plan a rural year of med school +/- rural intern and residency and that’s almost as many points as a PhD for no effort beyond the effort it takes to simply exist in a location.
Do some research. Doesn’t matter what. Just start now. If you can do a full year as rural placement as a med student that will be valuable. Getting on is not as hard as people make it seem.
Honestly who knows what the college will do. I’ve written before that I believe the rural points should only be for formative years. Given the goal is to get people working rurally once fully trained, I don’t think doing a few resident years there under semi duress will make it more likely to return.
Depends on the state. NSW and Vic closer to pgy 3-5 (if not on by then end up dropping off and having to so something else), QLD is 5-7+ due to proliferation of PHO/unaccredited jobs
Rural time weighs heavily on the initial selection criteria, so do that if you can
Look at the RANZCO selection criteria - all master’s degrees count the same (a paltry two points). So just pick one. The one you’re likely to enjoy the most, or finish with the least effort, or which costs the least.
For ranking candidates 1 point = 1 point. Gotta catch em all (well as many as you can). But once everyone is ranked, the bottom x% are cut. Of the remaining candidates, states can choose who they want to interview based on their individual skills.
You seem to be fixated on the 10. It is irrelevant. Everyone will be ranked based on points (including MMI points etc) . The top x number of candidates will be selectable for interviews.
I got on relatively early so I personally didn't no. The process is very transparent indeed but on the NATIONAL level. Once that national process is done, a list of like 70-80 people who have topped it gets distributed to all networks (states) which make the hiring decisions and the rest are now ineligible to get on.
RANZCO has updated their selection criteria - removing fundraising, extracurricular and sporting achievements. So it’s really 4 categories of scoring now:
Even back in my day it took longer to get into opthal? I feel like PGY3/4 is still heaps early for the competitive specialties.
varies but on average i'd say pgy4-5
Have never heard that about Victoria. I don’t think we care either way tbh
If you’re committed to it and you put in the hard work, keep your head on and are a team player you ll likely make it But it’s a long journey Re The QLD trainees albeit it’s longer to get on they are pretty solid surgeons starting out and make my life as an SMO a whole lot better
good question, they have changed it as of this year so unless you have 3 years of rural - you get no rural points so consider that into your calculations as PGY1+2 rural would give u 0 points as of today's criteria.
From what I’ve been told those unaccredited jobs require showing a serious commitment to ophthal (masters, PhD) to be considered. May be different in different hospitals though
I heard Sydney Eye SRMO isn’t insanely competitive, cause I think everyone assumes it is and don’t apply. I’m Currently an Ophthal JHO. My best piece of advice for someone at a non-Ophthal hospital is to find out who the director/who hires for each hospital.
It’s extremely rare to find an unaccredited ophthalmology registrar job lol I am not talking about just any unaccredited year
Any public hospital SRMO position will do. Surg SRMO - build surgical skills and hone your peri-operative care of patients. ED SRMO - establish a broad clinical skill set and build your leadership skills.
Aussie ophthal reg here I agree with most things that have already been said about maximising as many points as you can, as that's what everyone else is doing, and its only getting harder over time.
Where are you based? If NSW, have you done your sydney eye SRMO year yet? Others have commented already, but mid year jobs are frequent (in fact my wife got on because of a mid year job) Network hard and be on the lookout.
The thing ur wife also may not understand is thesr jobs are now actually difficult to get into. Orange job for example had HUGE applicants as there is only 2 (then last min change to 3) jobs.
Before I started training I’d done thousands of IVIs, years of essentially solo on call, dozens of cataracts. First year training was a piece of cake, actually I was most put off by how much supervision I suddenly had (as unaccredited regs ironically do not have the same supervision requirements since there is no…
My partner is a second year unaccredited ophthal reg currently working at one of the big metro/city services in VIC. She also didn’t land a training or unaccredited position in VIC for next year (thankfully she found an unaccredited job interstate for next year), but by all means she is a very competitive ophthal…
Orange unaccredited ophthal job has like 90% acceptance rate, something insabe like that.
Probs not tbh eye keen ppl seems to occur from intern yr and they essentially know who they want to hire by sept pgy1
Get a service reg job next year, email your state branch and ask when the applications open. I am a current PGY3 service reg.
Don’t bother with unaccredited jobs as they won’t count toward experience or your training applications. Stick to the accredited jobs in training hospitals even BPT or surgical positions count for more
This isn't true. Maybe once upon a time it was, but not currently. The college gives a lot of points for unaccredited experience, especially on call. The only way to compete during selection at the moment is to have on call ophthal experience.
From speaking to a tiny number (2) of ophthal registrars, the fallback pathway of choice seems to be BPT, trying to scrounge out any neuro experience you can, doing masters and research, and sprinting across the hospital everytime there's a ?uveitis in ED.
Not sure but Victoria has like 5 hospitals that advertise- RCH, Austin, RMH, Alfred , eye and ear Each one was 1 spot only and 99% of the time it’s all hired internally and goes to the people who did opthal hmo rotations there.
If applying to Sydney Eye, I recommend that you have started a masters (of any kind but the ophthalmic science one is good if you need to get exposure to people in the field), have some kind of research effort on your CV, and do all the crit care courses you can (e.g.
There are plenty of roles. Though I only know qld. Would essentially never be given to pgy2. At PGY2 would be looking for rotational resident terms in Ophthal.
Unaccredited Regs have nothing to do with college. Nothing. Not selected from applicants. No counted time. TTR are meant to be more as you describe yes.
There are SRMO and unaccredited jobs in most states. Sydney Eye/Orange/Newcastle, Royal Vic Eye and Ear/various hospitals in VIC, QLD (these are much more independent), Canberra, Lions Eye in Perth.
TTRs are hired by the network to fill vacancies in the network. For example, if an accredited trainee goes on parental leave for 6 months, then they'll need someone to do the rotations that they would have done.
what state are you from? there are just a handful of unaccredited jobs in NSW/Vic but like 20+ in QLD
The other consideration would be ED. It's not hard to pick up every single eye presentation in an ED shift - a lot of people will leave cat 4s with red eye waiting for hours.
It was too late the moment you weren't born to an ophthalmologist.
Ophthalmologist here, I finished training within the last 5 years so my experience is relatively recent. It's about middle of the pack for surgical subspecialities.
Entrance into Ophthal training in Australia is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder so first things first we need to know if your family history is significant for having Ophthalmologists in it.
It seems pretty similar to surgical specialties. If anything I know more people who got on to start their accredited training PGY-4 than across the surgical specialties, including general surgery.
If your APGARs weren’t perfect 10s consider yourself done. Otherwise it would have been easier to have 0s and try being born again into a house of an ophthalmologist
Short answer yes. I’ve said for a long time the reputation it has scares people off which makes it less competitive than it could be. But the enigma of it as a speciality as a whole and the perceived impossibility of getting into training makes us look more special in the eyes of other specialities which saves us from…
The stats on Medinav for QLD show 74 applicants with only 2 selected for the training program in 2023. I’d assume the successful applicants are absolutely maxing out their CV in every category except for maybe indigeneity?
Yes. Ophthal is second tier difficulty and has been for a while. It’s not the same level as surgical subspecs
Is this a joke? My partner has been trying for the last 5 years and this is his second unaccredited opthal reg year. Sure it’s not hard if your daddy’s an opthal or you’re a pretty female dr who gets mentored by another female opthal and gets told she’ll get her on the program
Stay in Australia. Getting into Ophthal isn’t as hard as people think anymore
It’s state dependent. Some states expect you to be able to do a tap and inject and laser by the time you get on. I would disagree with you and say ortho and ENT are way more competitive.
135 applicants for 32 spots across AUS/NZ. Acceptance rate of 23.7% which makes it one of the harder specialties compared to the RACS specialties. https://www.insightnews.com.au/workforce-attracting-more-ophthalmologists-to-the-regions/#:~:text=Ophthalmology%20is%20a%20highly%20competitive,across%20Australia%20and%20Ne…
%s of selection for a program basically don't mean anything if you don't consider the road it took to apply. Examples: Radiology: anyone can apply, basically no prerequisites, but there are pseudo-compulsory courses that DoTs look at to weed out people.
In NSW around 200 applicants for 7 spots I've heard
First tier: neurosurg, ortho, paeds surg, plastics 2nd tier: ophthal, derm Urology, vasc probably somewhere in-between Cardiology, gastro probably 2nd tier
From what I’ve seen, it’s as competitive as other surgical specialties. A lot have to do the grind of at least a few years as an unaccredited registrar then get a masters degree and write some research, followed by the kowtowing and brown nosing to get good references from the bosses.
RANZCO publishes selection statistics in their annual reports. For training positions commencing 2019-2023, there were between 122 - 144 applicants across Australia and New Zealand, with an average success rate of about 25%.
Possible but going to be a bit difficult if you aren’t an indigenous child of an ophthalmologist who grew up in MM7 and rowed for Australia during your unaccredited reg time before starting internship.
Of the 73 trainees who commenced in the last two years (2022 and 2023), there were 27 Masters degrees and 6 PhDs.
What I will say to you, is that I know enough about the details of the *current process* to tell you that what *you believe* about the process is incorrect.
"Not being absolutely destroyed during my unaccredited years" - oh my sweet child. In my medical school year, eight people tried to get into ophthalmology and only one succeeded.
If you meet an influential consultant who thinks you are the best thing since sliced bread, they would move mountains to make sure that you get in. There is an assumption that the selection process is fair based on the CV points allocated, however, there are usually politics behind-the-scenes that we, as junior…
As I've mentioned before one even mowed lawns for a consultant for a whole year, did manage to get in though
Im not sure what year you did opthal but times have changed. I’ve spoken to people who were informed by the committee members of the college section committees that are on the program “informally” weeks before they were formally notified.
As a JMO recruiter SES I can tell you will be lucky to hear within 24/48 hours. But definitely within 4-5 days you would know if your unsuccessful
Did the sydney eye hospital srmo offers come out for this year? Interviews were 2weeks ago.
They close 26th of July, so better get on to it
Yes for SRMO. Interviews were last Wednesday. It seems like successful candidates were already called.
*ophthalmology I’m not in ophthalmology but I’ve got several friends who are, and this doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. The college introduced a rigorous two-stage selection process in which several hurdles must be cleared at the first stage (CV, referees, research, MMI etc.). This more or less weeds out the…
I’d also recommend Hervey Bay because the ophthal there was brilliant at teaching students.
1 people, counts not rates; median 1.2 yr to getting on from the 1 whose start and outcome both fell inside the dump.
Get a service reg job next year, email your state branch and ask when the applications open. I am a current PGY3 service reg.comment ↗
I quit the subspec grind and got onto GP. I changed hospital from one of the tertiaries to a non-government hospital. Life is good, I’m gymming 5/7 days and doing dedicated cardio 4/7.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 ophthalmology, cross-cutting, term-strategy, employers 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.