The structurally easiest physician-track entry in Australia: it bypasses Basic Physician Training and the RACP divisional exams entirely.
Typical start years; people vary by a year or two. Diamonds are exams. Stage list and sources in the pathway tab.
No college interview, site-led recruitment, ~88 training posts nationally, regional posts frequently unfilled and explicitly open to non-accredited and GP-registrar candidates. 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.
Two full years of postgraduate supervised general medical and surgical training in the last five years plus an AFRM-accredited registrar job and you're in — 'The College is not involved in the recruitment and selection of trainees.' Individual sites recruit (VIC coordinates informally via RMTV), then RACP approves the program. 48 months FTE. The catch is at the other end: the Fellowship Clinical OSCE passes only about half of candidates, and metro public consultant posts are scarce. Also the shortest realistic prevocational route to pain medicine.
Rehab is where medicine goes to die
One of the new rehab bosses at my work was worried about having too much work and so applied for a bunch of 0.4 FTE jobs. She got accepted for three, and is now working 1.2 FTE slightly against her will. So in my neck of the woods at least there are jobs
Depends where you are. Inner Sydney? Limited jobs.
There is a ton of private rehab wards in private hospitals. All these comorbid joints we’re doing need inpatient and/or outpatient rehab. Both of these are billable by private rehab doctors who can make very decent money.
All 33 curated quotes by topic, trajectories and threads.
racp.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: racp.edu.au, canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au, reddit.com · 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.
The new curriculum's exact entry wording was not retrievable; the PREP '2 years gen med/surg' figure is the last confirmed one.
Pass rates as reported by an AFRM AT linking RACP data; not retrieved from RACP directly.
Canberra Health Services advertises 'Rehabilitation Medicine Unaccredited Registrar' commencing February — an explicit non-accredited entry job that converts.
~80 advanced trainees; Royal Rehab, Liverpool, POWH, Westmead, Ryde. Recruit via the NSW JMO main round (14 Jul - 4 Aug 2026).
Statewide campaign via the RMO & Registrar campaign (1-29 June); PA / Metro South. Accredited posts 'can be pretty competitive'.
Statewide campaign; Hampstead.
RMTV (Rehabilitation Medicine Training Victoria) runs an informal coordination layer: info evenings March/April and a trial 'matching' process with set open/close and interview windows for the 2027 year. Sites: Royal Talbot (Austin), Caulfield (Alfred), Monash, Northeast Health Wangaratta, Bairnsdale, Barwon, Ballarat; private Epworth/Healthscope.
RMTV 2027 window dates not captured in the evidence.
Fiona Stanley / Osborne Park; apply direct via MedCareersWA. SA's A&R allowance is specialty-differentiated (rehab 37.5%) — WA figures not captured.
Dates drift a week or two each year; the calendar has confirmed vs expected windows.
'The College is not involved in the recruitment and selection of trainees. Our role is to set and monitor standards.' Gate: 2 full years postgrad general medical/surgical within the last 5 years + an accredited position. No college interview, no national match.
Requirements and rubric: racp.edu.au, reddit.com · state mechanics: canberrahealthservices.act.gov.au, mapmycareer.health.nsw.gov.au, careers.health.qld.gov.au +3 · community rows from r/ausjdocs
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.
Exams and fees: racp.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 Rehabilitation medicine rules — whether or not the title names the specialty — highest first, closing soonest next.
Faded bars are expected, not confirmed. 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.
If you're thinking of it you better get onto it fast because there's some discussion of the program changing in the next few years to be a part of the BPT pathway.
I think the knowledge needed to be a great specialist in rehabilitation is a bit different to the medicine learned in BPT. I think we add more value to GPs and acute teams by seeing the patient from the disability/ICF lens. It’s a specific skill set to consult on a multi trauma in ICU, assess all their (often…
Hi Guys, I'm currently a PGY4 at Ipswich Hospital and am planning to apply for the Rehabilitation Registrar position next year. I've completed three rehabilitation rotations and have thoroughly enjoyed all of them. The specialty has really appealed to me, and it's something I'm very interested in pursuing as a…
As I understand, to become an accredited rehabilitation medicine registrar, you either need to have successfully completed basic physician training or attained a fellowship in another specialty already. As for whether or not you can be employed as a rehab med registrar, that depends on the health service. Some prefer…
Rehabilitation medicine is essentially learning how to coordinate the medical aspects and lead multi-disciplinary teams involved in the rehab of complex patients typically post-op, multi-trauma or complex comorbidities that have moved on from the acute to subacute admission phase of their care. Rehab physicians would…
Rehab does not involve doing bpt
I used to be a BPT trainee; after two years, I realized that I really wanted to do Rehab and nothing else. There was no point in continuing BPT. I think having a BPT background or at least a few years as a medicine PHO is important. Rehab medicine still requires general medicine knowledge and skills - you still need…
Apply for rehab training after PGY-2. The more experience you've had in medicine and/or surgery (particularly ortho), the better. Research is not necessary, but like anything else, it can help. I'd advised doing audits in rehabilitation or pain management. Then apply for a rehab registrar position. This is usually the…
As of this AMA, there are only as few requirements to get into Rehab training: \- be at least PGY-2 \- hold *general* medical registration \- Have an AFRM (Australasian Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine) accredited registrar position. The last point might be the hardest to get, depending on where you are/where…
No, don’t need to do BPT for rehab training.
Depends where you are. Inner Sydney? Limited jobs.
One of the new rehab bosses at my work was worried about having too much work and so applied for a bunch of 0.4 FTE jobs. She got accepted for three, and is now working 1.2 FTE slightly against her will. So in my neck of the woods at least there are jobs
It's absolutely possible, but I'm not sure I've ever heard of someone doing it without spending a good chunk of time as an inpatient consultant first Surgeon referrals are everything in rehab. You need a really strong network, and that really only comes from spending time on the wards earning their trust.
There is a ton of private rehab wards in private hospitals. All these comorbid joints we’re doing need inpatient and/or outpatient rehab. Both of these are billable by private rehab doctors who can make very decent money.
In public, wages are standard according to state awards. In private, it can be very flexible. I’m based in Queensland and the private landscape can be quite diverse. It will depend in some way on how much elective surgical work that your private hospital does. There is an old rehab private guy who is very enterprising…
That’s great - it must be state specific basically nothing in WA
Depends on what you want to do. PH definitely but private clinic land for rehab physicians is an open field. I don't think anyone is securing 1.0 FTE boss positions in most specialties these days fwiw (and I don't think anyone wants them either).
Issue is boss positions, there's a general need for them but a struggle to get funding. Private rehab is run by genmed bosses. Wards areexpensive to run due to needing heavy AH and not much turnover. Public rehab has limited spots, most rehab bosses work across multiple hospitals as noone can secure a 1.0 fte. Overall…
In theory, you could build a private OP practice without a permanent IP position, but in practice, it's quite challenging. Most private rehab is subacute and setting up independently isn't easy, especially without years of experience, a strong referral base and without your allied health colleagues who do so much of…
As long as you are based in an inpatient setting, you will inevitably deal with some level of acuity. The bigger the hospital your rehab unit is in, the more medically complex the patients and the more likely you’ll need a good grasp of general medical and surgical principles so you know when and who to call for help,…
Who shit in your biscuits lol When I was a med reg I'd just take the sweet 2-minute round on a stable patient awaiting rehab assessment over a 30-minute multi-specialty disaster
I did my extended skills in Rehabilitation medicine, I quite liked it. It is a slower pace, you have time to assess patients who are usually incredibly complex with multiple comorbidities. There is a lot of dealing with families, particularly when cognition came into question, and they'd often have differing ideas on…
Rehab Med is a good choice if you like looking after patients typically post-op major surgery (lots of orthopaedics or spinal plus some cardiac and neuro) or post-stroke or post-traumatic brain injury or have other complex co-morbidities or at extremities of age and can’t just go straight home and benefit from a…
At the metro hospitals, I've had to do on-call once a fortnight. In the regional and rural hospital, I've never had to do on call.
Rehab is an excellent career choice, it pays well, there are very few emergencies and you get to do the real grit work of moving people through one of the hardest times of their lives. The surgery is a minute for them, the rehabilitation part is where they learn the strength to carry on with the rest of their lives.…
Rehab medicine is lifestyle friendly. Most of my consultants work maybe 4 times a week and are able to balance family and work. Clinics might take a lot of time particularly since there may be a psychosocial issue that needs addressing. The majority of consultants I have met enjoy their work.
Good lifestyle. Good to combo with pain medicine.
Rehab is where medicine goes to die
A lot of rehab medicine is frankly crap for the patient and their family. They will often have experience where their relative basically gets the same level of allied health intervention as they would on a geriatric/genmed ward, but with less frequent or thorough nursing care and medical review. To them, it can feel…
Rehab is the least competitive specialty. Just show up.
If you have a strong pulse in at least one limb you can be a rehab reg, you will get a job (same goes for med reging as I am so no shade from me)
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
I can think of two older colleagues who spent their entire working lives doing rehab and child developmental assessments without letters, I think they were paid as CMOs by SA Health all their working life.
r/ausjdocs comments and posts, hand-curated from the rehabilitation, 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.