The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) is the professional body for GPs in Australia.
The organisation is responsible for developing and maintaining standards of education and training, and quality clinical practice as well as research in general practice.
The RACGP also advocates for GPs regarding issues that affect general practice, and has the largest membership of any medical college in Australia. Membership of the RACGP is mandatory for GPs wishing to obtain fellowship.
Fellowship of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (FRACGP) is a specialist qualification accredited by the Australian Medical Council. The FRACGP exam is the usual means by which doctors attain eligibility to apply for Fellowship with the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.
Attainment of the FRACGP qualification shows that a GP has been assessed as being competent to practice unsupervised, and has obtained the highest level of training.
The qualification also allows GPs to claim certain types of Medicare rebates; allow doctors to use the letters FRACGP after their name; and be recognised as a Fellow in New Zealand, Ireland and Canada through a reciprocal arrangement.
Registrars seeking enrolment must meet eligibility requirements, including in some cases recognition of prior learning. There are various pathways to achieving FRACGP qualification including the vocational training pathway, the specialist pathway, and the practice based assessment pathway for GPs who are actively working in general practice.
The FRACGP examination consists of three segments:
- Applied Knowledge Test (AKT)
- Key Feature Problems (KFP)
- Objective Structured Clinical Exam (OSCE)
Both the AKT and KFP are conducted in an online exam format undertaken in an RACGP approved facility. The AKT consists of 150 multiple choice questions and the KFP contains case scenarios with extended responses. The OSCE is performance-based testing whereby candidates are observed and evaluated as they address different clinical scenarios.
Exam results are sent via email to candidates on a specific scheduled results release date. Alternatively, candidates can log into the RACGP website on or after that date and obtain their results.
The RACGP also publishes a list of successful exam candidates on their website. Candidates who successfully complete all exam segments can then apply for admission to Fellowship of the RACGP.
More information about the FRACGP qualification, including the Fellowship Exams Candidate Handbook, is available from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. If you are seeking a job as a GP, we have many suitable positions available on our job vacancies page.