Not enterable from prevocational years. Pain medicine is a distinct specialty run as a faculty of ANZCA: two years after (or alongside the end of) a primary fellowship — a Core Training Stage in accredited multidiscipli…
Typical start years; people vary by a year or two. Diamonds are exams. Stage list and sources in the pathway tab.
Not rated for a prevocational audience — undersubscribed at the fellowship level ('after completing your initial fellowship, most people just want to stop and breathe'), with limited accredited training jobs, highly var… 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.
ary pain units plus a Practice Development Stage — with a Foundations MCQ, long case assessments and a Fellowship Examination. 'The rate limiting step for training is often obtaining an accredited training job and completion of exams. There are also limited public jobs after completion.' Route speed: RACGP fastest (~4 years to starting pain training), AFRM ~6, RACP ~7, anaesthetics ~8 — but 'judging purely on speed is an error'. Show as 'choose a parent specialty'.
No amount of money is worth that shit 😂
Sydney rehab is incredibly profitable, especially when combined with the two year pain medicine qualification (which you can do and knock 1 year off rehab, making it a 4 year dual specialty). The bosses I know in the field report earnings over $650k per year doing both
Not a pain physician but was a reg once. Let’s just say you really need a rather mental health mindset.
Do it. Lots of private practice money making options.
All 43 curated quotes by topic, trajectories and threads.
anzca.edu.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
Term advice: nothing encoded yet — not published.
Stages: reddit.com, anzca.edu.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.
Pain Medicine Provisional Fellow early round in the NSW JMO campaign, 4-14 May 2026 for the 2027 year.
'An enormous wait list in Victoria' for public chronic pain clinics; trainees typically split time between pain and their other specialty.
Dates drift a week or two each year; the calendar has confirmed vs expected windows.
Gate is a primary specialist qualification (held or actively training toward) per by-law 3.1.3; posts employer-recruited; no CV rubric published.
Requirements and rubric: anzca.edu.au, health.nsw.gov.au · state mechanics: health.nsw.gov.au, reddit.com · community rows from r/ausjdocs
"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.
Exams and fees: anzca.edu.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 Pain 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.
16 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.
That’s because anaesthetists have better options.
I reckon it would be very useful, for you and your department. Maybe talk with your director about how they could support it/ meet with pain specialists in your hospital (if they exist), or local area. When Ive spoken to pain specialists the overwhelming difference is, they have time to talk with the patient and…
Depends. Are you ED because of the attention span and chaotic nature? Not sure if pain fits that personality. Private money seems good from what colleagues say. Joining a private practice group and work 2-3 days a fortnight in pain seems the way. I couldn't imagine anything worse than dealing with chronic pain as a…
Ast and arst..the SITE is what is accredited not the supervisor. So that would be an absolute no.
If you like managing chronic pain syndromes in complex patients plus being accredited to do perineural injections, radiofrequency ablations and insert/manage spinal cord stimulators, then go for it. It's best if you work as part of a multi-disciplinary chronic pain service or clinic with other allied health…
Many are drawn to anaesthesia because they like: sessional, in-patient work; no patient ownership beyond a single case; rapidly manipulated real-time physiology, using expert knowledge of pharmacology; theatre work, rather than wards or clinics. Pain, in contrast, involves chronic on-going patient care of patients in…
Amongst all anaesthetists? Not very. Most people in anaesthetics didn’t go into it because they wanted to spend time sitting in clinic talking to patients about containment strategies and multidisciplinary approaches, so there’s a limited group interested in the first place It’s also not a subspecialty of anaesthesia…
Chronic pain is an option. But may I suggest addiction medicine. Satisfying work with astronomical need public and private which huge comorbidty and brief health interventions which would dovetail your FACEM skills.
RACGP would definitely be faster (min 4 years to starting pain training) RACP isn’t really - you have to complete AT to have letter so it’s still 7 years (as compared to the typical 8 for anaesthetics) AFRM is another option that’s not uncommon amongst pain physicians and is slightly faster (6 years) Judging purely…
The Faculty of Pain Medicine is a part of the College of Anaesthetists, but doctors with Fellowships from other colleges are also able to complete pain medicine training. My experience has been that there is a small subset of anaesthetists who like treating chronic pain patients, and a much larger subset who want…
I trained at a large metro tertiary centre that "graduates" about 10-12 FANZCAs. Over the last 8 years that I've worked here as a trainee and consultant, I don't know a single person who then went on to do further subspecialty training in pain. I'm on the APS consultant roster, and I doubt any of our regular APS…
Purely anecdotally, many of the Pain trainees and fellows I've met are GPs.
It’s actually not uncommon. It’s just not…..common. I would say 5% of my cohort went into pain. And only about half of those went into pain full time. The rest do half half pain and anaesthesia. Most of them did it because they were genuinely interested in it. I’d rather lobotomise myself than go into chronic pain.…
I work in private pain and most of the consultants come from the rehab college. Ketamine and lignocaine infusions all day.
There are a few in WA. Also some GPs, a neurosurgeon and the odd psychiatrist.
Very location specific question. You should be emailing your local hospital and sussing out options with them. Cobbling together relevant experience and skills is the best you can do without relocating to an accredited pain fellowship training centre.
> I've spent some time in a public persistent pain clinic and, as expected, a lot of the patients are quite difficult/dysfunctional. Is the same true in private? Nah mate. Most of them are easy-going, intervention/opioid naive with no issues with chronic pain. Usually just need help choosing between paracetamol qid…
It's funny how we as ED docs work hard to get to becoming ED consultants. Once there, we work hard to get out of being ED consultants. I'm there with you, though. The limited potential to really only work in the public health system isn't spoken about much during training years. Regarding pain medicine, I am sure…
No amount of money is worth that shit 😂
Not a pain physician but was a reg once. Let’s just say you really need a rather mental health mindset.
I did a few months of pain as a registrar. The amount of patients with psychiatric problems was very high. From my anecdotal experience a lot of anesthesiologists had a biological approach only when pain is clearly bio-psycho-social.
Pain specialists: Yes, that pain sounds terrible. Here, get on a six month wait list. Also pain specialists: I just don’t understand why GPs prescribe so many opioids for chronic pain patients.
I think just be aware- you have to have a very, very special wiring to do this role. Maximum patience Maximum empathy Whilst also being able to switch the latter off when you go home to avoid burnout. The era of “write a script” for persistent pain is over. The evidence makes this very, very clear. But it’s…
I’d agree. Pain patients are not normal. You need a thick skin to manage. I don’t think doing pain part-time will cut it.
The issue is that there are often no easy answers and that is not what patients (particularly private patients who are paying a decent amount of money) want to hear.
Pain patients are the reason most people don't like pain as a speciality. A huge % who are on WorkCover and incentivise to stay sick.
It requires a special kind of stamina, resilience and calmness. It’s not for the faint hearted and those who don’t want a large part of their time taken up writing reports and sitting in the witness box as it descends into the mud wrestling legal quagmire of disentanglement organic vs non-organic, patient credibility,…
Was going to say - private procedural can make bank but a lot of what they do has limited and or controversial evidence base and they use fluoro (due to training and accessibility) for procedures that really should be done under CT.
Quite a lot in private. The unethical ones can make bank from procedural stuff on patients that will only escalate their rx Its can be basically drug dealing
Also have a think if you like dealing with chronic pain patients. It's not the I broke my leg pts .... It's the... Oh I was injured decades ago, increasing my pain meds doesn't seem to actually help but I want to be in them. I cant move without them and it's your fault I can't exercise because you won't give me more…
I know Pain FANZCAs and have anaesthetised for some of their pain lists. The procedural lists do pay for than for the anaesthetic providers (with fairly average billing), but the overheads are much higher. The days consulting pay terribly, the patients are often tricky to deal with, and the group takes a large cut.
Sydney rehab is incredibly profitable, especially when combined with the two year pain medicine qualification (which you can do and knock 1 year off rehab, making it a 4 year dual specialty). The bosses I know in the field report earnings over $650k per year doing both
You said it yourself, “paid appropriately”. Is $320,000 pa appropriate remuneration for the sacrifice required to become an ED consultant? Or any fellowed position in medicine for that matter? Might have been 10 or 20 years ago, but the world has changed. You should feel more “yuck” that the median income is only $65k,…
Interventional pain is way bigger money than private anaesthesia. That’s a motivation for some. It’s also more rewarding for some on professional level, in that for some patients you can see the tangible difference you are making in their lives whereas anaesthesia is more of a thankless background character most of the…
The ones I know bill around $500-700/hour before practice costs. Can be very tough work, one has to be very good with boundary setting and the more challenging patients will often have some psych overlap.
Do it. Lots of private practice money making options.
Not personally doing pain. I will say that most people I’ve seen doing pain fellowship as an anaesthetics trainee manage to negotiate some acceptable amount of theatre time during that. Why waste a perfectly good FANZCA when you can be running another endoscopy list.
Definitely my experience. Had plenty of gifts and thank you cards from patients in private. And they were paying me out of their own pocket. Very rare to get any meaningful acknowledgement from public patients. Obviously YMMV but that’s been my experience. It’s the opposite of what I thought it would be while…
From what I understand, different services can vary widely in terms of rostered training hours (full time being 4 x 10 hour shifts per week vs 5 x 8 hours), clinic vs procedure mix, effectiveness of the MDT etc. As a non-trainee I’m not sure of the process, and these things may be difficult to select for your…
Not personally, but there are a few FANZCA / FPM fellows in our department. They’ve all managed to negotiate a mix of public and private work, and a mix of pain & theatre work in the public, so it seems to be very possible.
Not a pain specialist but in private many specialties want to see GP referrals in advance and triage aka screen the referrals, and can thus decline the referral. So your difficult/dysfunctional patients in private can be substantially reduced if thats how someone chooses to practice.
I agree, but I’m also tired of referring patients 3 hours drive to the nearest pain centre.
It’s not common IME. Pain medicine - particularly chronic pain - attracts a fundamentally different sort of clinician to those who are usually drawn to anaesthesia.
r/ausjdocs comments and posts, hand-curated from the pain collection; 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.