The ANU Medicine course

ANU calls the MChD an integrated spiral curriculum. Integrated means science and clinical practice are taught together rather than in separate halves. Spiral means topics come back each year in more depth. The four themes and four frameworks are the threads that keep returning, so population health, professionalism and Indigenous health run through the whole course rather than sitting in one subject.

In Years 1 and 2 each week is built around a clinical case, and you work through hypotheses and possible diagnoses as you go. The main format is team-based learning.

Older descriptions use a different label. The AMC's 2023 accreditation report described problem-based learning (PBL) as the core of Phase 1, with PBL tutors guiding groups. In PBL, a small group works out for itself what it needs to learn from a case. This guide follows ANU's 2026 class outlines, which describe team-based learning.

From Year 3 you learn mainly on placement. ANU stresses self-directed, hands-on learning, with set requirements for attendance, for clerking patients (taking and writing up a full history and examination) and for joining in your unit's work. Formal teaching continues through case-based learning (CBL) tutorials and clinico-pathological correlation sessions, which link a patient's illness to the disease processes behind it.

In Years 1 and 2 ANU expects you to put in at least 40 hours a week, of which 20 to 22 hours are scheduled sessions; the rest is independent study. Attendance is compulsory at team-based learning, medical science practicals, Professionalism and Leadership classes, population health group work, clinical skills days and cultural immersion sessions. Travel between Acton and Canberra Hospital is at your own cost. A student profiled by the School in 2026 said the timetable leaves breaks between classes and some half days for work, study or rest.

In Year 3 the expectation is at least six clinical sessions of four hours a week, sometimes seven or eight, plus teaching all day on Wednesday. In the urban general practice rotation, Wednesday and Friday are both teaching days at the Canberra Hospital campus, so you are in the practice three days a week. Rural placements, including the Rural Stream, run at seven or eight sessions a week, plus Wednesday teaching, and can include after-hours work.

Year 4 keeps the minimum of six four-hour clinical sessions a week. A lecture series for the whole year group runs every Friday, with core topics early in the year, and each block adds its own workshops and tutorials.

Anatomy is one of the sciences in the Medical Sciences theme. Practicals take place in the School's Medical Science and Anatomy Facility, which is licensed under the ACT Transplantation and Anatomy Act 1978. Its rules tell students to wear gloves when handling prosected specimens, meaning body parts already dissected by staff, and to take care when handling cadaveric specimens. You complete an induction first, and phones, photos, food and drink are banned.

The specimens come from people who donate their bodies to the School after death. Patients can also donate organs or tissue removed during surgery, which form the Surgical Specimen Teaching Museum at Canberra Hospital, used to teach anatomy and pathology. The AMC's 2023 report mentioned a dissection week with a limited number of places, and the School's prize list includes an Anatomy Dissection Prize.

Clinical skills teaching starts in Year 1. You learn to take a history and examine each body system, practising with volunteer patients and with simulated patients. A second-year student told ANU in 2025 that volunteer patients give feedback on how your words and manner made them feel.

ANU describes a weekly clinical day at a Canberra hospital, and the AMC's 2026 report says most Year 1 and 2 clinical skills teaching takes place in the School's Building 4 at Canberra Hospital. Each of the first two years also includes a week in a rural area around Canberra or south-east New South Wales.

By Year 3 you are expected to take a history and examine competently, because you now join clinical teams almost full time. You clerk patients, summarise their problems, hand over to colleagues and draft management plans for straightforward cases. Year 4 moves on to more complex patients, recognising when a patient is deteriorating and making full management plans.

Each year is a single course. To pass it you must reach the standard in three separate hurdles, meaning required components: one for knowledge, one for clinical practice, and one for professionalism and engagement. You also need no adverse finding from the School's Professional Behaviour Committee. The hurdles are non-compensatory, so a strong exam result cannot make up for a weak clinical one.

There is no overall mark. If you meet every hurdle the result is recorded as course requirement satisfied, and a higher-level pass is decided by analysing results across all assessments. Raw marks are scaled so that 50 is the pass mark.

Written exams are several papers over several days, supervised in person and taken on a computer, so a laptop is recommended. In Years 1 and 2 they are sat at Acton, after a practice exam. In Year 3 you may sit the final exam at your clinical school, and in Year 4 at Acton or the Sydney Clinical School, where space and staff allow. The AMC's 2023 report listed multiple-choice, extended matching, short-answer and structured essay questions.

In Years 1 and 2, progressive clinical skills assessments test short tasks with a volunteer or simulated patient, watched by an examiner and scored on five areas of practice plus an overall judgement. From Year 3 the main clinical exam is the OSCE. To pass you need an overall passing score and a minimum number of stations passed.

Under the 2026 Year 4 outline, every student sits OSCE Part A before PRINT, and anyone below the standard sits further stations, Part B, at the end of PRINT, with the results combined. The AMC's 2023 report described an older order, with the Year 4 OSCE after PRINT. According to the AMC's 2026 report, a 2025 redesign brought in domain-based marking and standard station templates, and OSCEs are now marked electronically.

Years 3 and 4 also run on an electronic portfolio in the risr system. It holds your mini-CEX assessments, long cases, clinical skills sign-offs, supervisor reports and learning plans. Procedural skills assessments are separate from the portfolio, with one extra attempt allowed. Your supervisor reports must average a rating of consistently met in every category.

• A supplementary assessment is possible only if your scaled knowledge or clinical score is between 45 and 49. There is none for the professionalism hurdle, or after failing both parts of the Year 4 OSCE.
• Failing more than one hurdle means failing the course for that year, with no supplementary assessment.
• If you fail a year, you meet the School Director to seek permission to repeat it, or to take program leave and repeat it after 12 months.
• Failing any course puts you on probation for the rest of the program. A second failure, or failing in the final year, can lead to exclusion for up to five years.

In Years 3 and 4 you rotate through placements run by three clinical schools. The Canberra Clinical School covers three hospitals run by Canberra Health Services. Canberra Hospital in Garran is a 672-bed tertiary hospital, North Canberra Hospital in Bruce has 250 beds, and the University of Canberra Hospital provides rehabilitation and has a separate mental health wing. Placements can also be at the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children, on the Canberra Hospital campus.

Each student gets an individual timetable and placement sequence. When the AMC visited in March 2026, it found enough placements for the current number of students. Students at the Canberra hospitals told it they were getting rotation and roster details at short notice. The School plans to place students with clinical units or settings rather than with individual supervisors, a change intended to improve this.

The Sydney Clinical School is at Sydney Adventist Hospital in Wahroonga, on Sydney's North Shore. Placements can include specialist rooms, operating theatres, recovery and multidisciplinary team meetings. You pay your own travel and accommodation; hostel-style rooms are available on site, and the school shares accommodation options, which may include discounts.

The Rural Clinical School is funded by the federal government to encourage students into rural careers. It has campuses in Eurobodalla, Bega, Cooma, Goulburn, Cowra and Young, teaches in the Northern Territory, and owns houses and townhouses near each campus. Rural Stream students get furnished housing with wifi, students on six-week rural placements have accommodation and travel paid, and Northern Territory students have travel and furnished housing provided. You pay for your own meals.

Everyone outside the Rural Stream spends six weeks of Year 3 on a rural placement in New South Wales or the Northern Territory, often in general practice, which can include hospital and after-hours work. In 2023 the AMC reported that only 25 students, roughly a quarter of the class, could have a Northern Territory placement. In Year 3 or Year 4 you may be allowed to arrange part or all of one block outside the ACT yourself, paying your own travel and accommodation.

In Year 4 the 2026 outline offers anaesthetics and intensive care in Bega or Goulburn, a possible medicine rotation in Bega and general psychiatry in Goulburn. If you did a rural placement in Year 3, you can spend two weeks of women's health and newborn care in a rural setting, and some PRINT weeks may be rural. The Rural Clinical School pays travel and accommodation for students assigned to these placements.

Every student completes a clinical elective, a placement of their own choosing, in the summer between Year 3 and Year 4. Its aim is to broaden your experience of other health systems, cultures and global health. You can go anywhere in Australia, or overseas with approval. It is assessed on your own elective report and a report from your host supervisor, and you should expect at least six four-hour clinical sessions a week.

ANU's sources describe the length and timing differently. The course page calls it an elective term of four or more weeks at the start of Year 4. The 2027 elective course page (MEDI8000) sets a minimum of three weeks with the host, between Years 3 and 4, and the AMC's 2023 report described a compulsory four to six weeks. The School keeps December and January free of visiting students so its own students can do their electives.

The elective is required, but ANU files it in two places. The 2027 Medicine 4 page lists it as a block of Year 4, while the program rules list it as a separate zero-unit course, MEDI8000.

The School's elective stories, posted in 2019 and 2024, cover placements in Spain, Zambia, Malta, Japan, Samoa, Vietnam, Thailand, Ireland, New Zealand and the UK. Indigenous Health Stream students get support to take their elective in Indigenous health.

At ANU's Acton campus, the AMC's 2023 report described two lecture theatres seating 96 and 240, three teaching laboratories, 15 teaching and learning rooms and a 24-hour student space. They sit in the same precinct as the John Curtin School of Medical Research.

Building 4 at Canberra Hospital is the School's hospital base, used for clinical skills teaching and home to ANU's education support staff. It also houses the Canberra Health Services Library, where medical students can book rooms for group work.

In Sydney, the Clinical Education Centre on the hospital campus has teaching rooms, clinical skills laboratories, lecture auditoria, a simulation learning centre, a library and a common room.

ANU has clinical training facilities in the grounds of the hospitals in Bega, Cooma and Goulburn, and runs clinical training in Batemans Bay and Moruya. Goulburn's facility has teaching rooms, simulation spaces, meeting rooms, study areas and a clinical library. In Bega, students practise emergencies in the South East Regional Hospital's simulation centre with hospital staff.

Each year group has its own Student Welfare Adviser. Years 3 and 4 have two each, split by surname, and the Year 1 adviser also looks after international students. A Head of Student Welfare takes up anything that needs escalating. The School's Student Support Centre pages cover stress, money, housing, bullying and harassment, leave and exams, and point to Drs4Drs, a free national telehealth service for doctors and medical students.

In Years 3 and 4 you have an Academic Supervisor, whom you meet at least four times a year to set a learning plan and review your portfolio. In Years 1 and 2, your progress across all three hurdles is reviewed after the mid-year exams. If you are off track, you meet staff and may be referred for academic or personal support.

Leave rules are stricter than in other ANU programs. Under the School's 2023 guidelines, program leave is usually granted for 12 months, and only in circumstances such as illness, pregnancy or serious personal or family problems. Shorter absences must be reported to your coordinator and supervisors, and absences of three days or more need approval.

The School has a Culture and Wellbeing Committee and student representatives on its education committees. The Medical Venture Fund gives grants of up to $500 for activities outside the curriculum, such as art, language or community projects. Student groups include the ANU Medical Students' Society and the ANU Rural Medical Society, for students interested in rural, remote and Indigenous health.