The Charles Sturt Medicine course

The school calls years 1 and 2 a problem-based learning hybrid. Lectures, tutorials and practicals support the weekly PBL case by teaching the science behind it.

Both campus years work through the body one system at a time. In each block the biomedical sciences, from anatomy, biochemistry and physiology to microbiology, pharmacology and population health, are taught through clinical scenarios and bedside teaching with patients. Threads on communication, professionalism, evidence-based practice and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health run through every block, and practising clinicians do much of the teaching.

From year 3 the method changes to presentation-based learning. A presentation is the problem a patient arrives with, such as chest pain or a fever. For each one you learn the anatomy and disease processes behind it, the history and examination, which tests to order and how to manage it.

Each clinical year builds on the last. Year 4 revisits the year 3 presentations in paediatrics, obstetrics and gynaecology, and mental health. Year 5 is organised around the work of a junior doctor: assessing patients, ordering tests, prescribing safely and managing emergencies with basic and advanced life support.

In the campus years you have a weekly PBL tutorial, with lectures, practicals and clinical skills sessions around it. The handbook gives each year's workload in hours: 1,120 to 1,280 in year 1 and 1,120 to 1,310 in year 2. The clinical years rise to 1,700 to 1,900 hours in year 3, 1,600 to 1,800 in year 4 and 1,600 to 1,720 in year 5.

The school's Future students page says attendance is mandatory. You are expected to attend and take part in 100 per cent of scheduled teaching, and not meeting the requirement leads to a fail for that year's subject. The AMC's 2025 report, by contrast, described the course as having no fixed attendance requirements while stressing active participation, so check the current rule when you enrol.

For the clinical years, a final-year student at the Murray Clinical School described her routine on the university's student blog in April 2026. She was on placement Monday to Friday, with a few tutorials from local clinicians. On an anaesthetics rotation she joined morning and afternoon theatre lists across Albury and Wodonga hospitals, and fitted lectures and assignments into her own time.

Anatomy is taught on the Orange campus in years 1 and 2, as part of each body system block. The school's anatomy education centre holds plastinated specimens, real human specimens preserved with plastic so they can be handled and studied. The campus also has an ultrasound room, where you learn to use ultrasound to examine patients.

In a university-published interview first posted in 2021, the then Associate Head of School listed anatomy models, cadavers, plastinated specimens, radiological images and ultrasound as resources. Anatomy tutors and clinicians teach both the structures and why they matter clinically. A second-year student featured by the university in September 2026 was struck by how much work had gone into the anatomy centre and its resources.

Anatomy has its own exam in each of years 1 and 2, worth 15 per cent of the year's mark. From year 3 it returns in clinical form, as the anatomy behind each presentation you study.

Clinical learning starts in your first weeks of study. The year 1 handbook describes bedside teaching with patients, hospital-based sessions and community visits alongside the PBL cases.

Each of years 1 and 2 includes a Rural Generalist Placement of at least two weeks (80 hours in the 2027 handbook) in general practices, Aboriginal Medical Services, community health services and rural hospitals. In a 2023 blog post, a second-year student described splitting hers between the GP clinic at the Trundle Multi Purpose Health Service and the operating theatres at Parkes Hospital, where she scrubbed in.

Medicine in Context adds short community placements in years 1 and 2. The AMC also names a Day on Country, a day spent on the traditional lands of local Aboriginal people, as part of Medicine in Context.

The AMC found in 2025 that every student gains clinical experience caring for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients. It added that more work is needed to make sure these experiences are culturally safe and adequate.

Each year of the course is a single 64-credit-point subject, so you pass or fail the year as a whole. It combines weighted items, mostly exams, with pass/fail items such as the portfolio, logbook, Indigenous Health Assessment and professionalism, and is graded on the university's high distinction to fail scale. The AMC noted in 2025 that, because of this structure, failing one discipline means repeating the whole year, and that the school had no plans to change this.

Knowledge is tested every year in short answer question (SAQ) and multiple choice question (MCQ) exams, plus an anatomy exam in years 1 and 2. The AMC reported that written exams are standard-set with the modified Cohen method, which sets the pass mark relative to the scores of the strongest students. It also counted more than 30 assessment pieces in years 1 and 2.

Clinical skills are examined in a Clinical Examination in years 2, 3 and 4. In year 5 this becomes a case-based discussion, where you talk an examiner through a patient you have cared for. There is also a long case, where you assess one patient in depth and present your findings and plan. The AMC also lists online OSCEs: Objective Structured Clinical Examinations, in which you rotate through timed stations that each test one task.

On placement, supervisors rate you on real tasks in workplace-based assessments, collected in a logbook that must be satisfactory each year. These include mini-CEX forms, each recording a short observed patient encounter with feedback. The pass/fail Indigenous Health Assessment, already part of years 1 and 2, appears in years 3 to 5 for the first time in the 2027 handbook.

The AMC's 2025 report set conditions here. By 2026 the school must show an assessment system blueprinted across all five years. By the same date it must show better training for clinical supervisors, after students reported being assessed by locums (temporary doctors) unfamiliar with the school's standards. By 2027 it must assess Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and culturally safe practice across the whole course.

Struggling students are picked up early. Year convenors review results weekly with the Associate Head of School for learning and teaching. In years 1 and 2, students who fall behind agree a study plan with their convenor. In the clinical years, failing an attachment puts you at risk of failing the year and leads to a referral to your Head of Clinical School.

Placements begin in year 1, with a Rural Generalist Placement in each campus year and short Medicine in Context visits. Before your first placement you must give NSW Health a national police check, proof of vaccinations and a signed code of conduct agreement. These are verified through ClinConnect, NSW Health's system for checking students' placement documents. You also need a Working with Children Check and Mental Health First Aid training, and the faculty sets 1 June of first year as the deadline.

For years 3 to 5 you are allocated to one clinical school and study there full-time, returning to the same community each year. Each clinical school is a regional hub for surrounding towns. You are also seconded to regional base hospitals, district hospitals and general practices for specialist training and pre-internship work. In hospitals you can rotate through emergency departments, wards, theatres, intensive care, children's wards, maternity, special care nurseries and outpatient clinics.

When the network was funded in 2022, the university described clinical school campuses focused on smaller communities with district hospitals, each linked to a larger base hospital in its region. The school works with Western NSW, Murrumbidgee and Mid North Coast Local Health Districts, Albury Wodonga Health, Swan Hill District Health and Bendigo Health to deliver teaching. Some hospitals also host students from other universities, so supervisors and space are shared.

On costs, the handbook says you pay for travel, accommodation and resources on compulsory placements. The AMC reported in 2025 that students placed more than an hour from their base clinical school get accommodation. It is paid for by the school or by the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training program, through which the Australian Government funds rural health training. The AMC also heard concerns about long, tiring drives, especially at the Northern Rivers Clinical School, where rentals are scarce and sites are spread out.

City experience is limited. The AMC found in 2025 that few placements in city hospitals are compulsory, because the program's Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training funding covers regional, rural and remote areas. Staff will try to arrange a city placement on request, and some students use electives to see how rural patients are transferred to city hospitals. Not every student gets city time.

For 2027 entrants, two university sources disagree on placement hours. The 2027 handbook's figures total 3,360 hours, with years 3 to 5 down from the 2026 handbook's 1,260, 1,220 and 1,260. The faculty's work-integrated learning page gives 138, 184, 1,200, 1,520 and 1,520 hours for years 1 to 5, or 4,562 in all.

In year 5 the 2027 handbook includes four weeks of directed clinical placement, set according to your identified learning needs. The pre-internship program the AMC described in 2025 includes one selective alongside medicine, surgery and general practice.

More broadly, the AMC found in 2025 that students have room to follow their own interests and are encouraged to seek out extra opportunities. What is available varies between clinical schools, and some students find openings through senior doctors at their site that others may not get. The AMC said a written policy is needed to make the process consistent.

Years 1 and 2 are taught on the North Orange campus, which Charles Sturt calls its health hub, shared with courses such as dentistry, pharmacy and physiotherapy. The School of Rural Medicine has an anatomy education centre, an ultrasound room, clinical skills rooms and simulated hospital rooms, plus an academic hub with PBL tutorial rooms and study areas.

The hospital simulation area has two four-bed patient rooms, a scrub room and a nurses' station, fitted out like a real ward. The school's second site, on the Bloomfield campus in Forest Road, sits across the road from the hospital in Orange and has clinical skills rooms, tutorial rooms and student areas.

In August 2026 Charles Sturt officially opened the Newmont Simulation Centre and Immersion Room in the Bloomfield Medical building, funded with more than $1.5 million from Newmont through Cadia's Community Investment Program. It recreates wards, operating theatres and emergency settings, with advanced patient manikins, a portable 360-degree camera ring for recording and reviewing scenarios, and a 19.5-metre wraparound LED screen.

Clinical school facilities vary. In 2025 the AMC found purpose-built facilities at many sites, but students at Parkes had no allocated space and many sites lacked culturally safe spaces and parents' rooms. It asked the school to evaluate this by 2027. The course has its own IT staff member, and library staff ask students which journals they need.

Each clinical school has a Head of Clinical School, who runs placements and works with local supervisors, and a Clinical School Support Officer, who keeps an eye on student wellbeing. The AMC found the support officers very dedicated, and noted that small numbers give students good access to academics.

Study Access Plans can provide extra exam time, separate exam rooms, deferred exams, tailored timetables, larger print and allocation to a preferred clinical school. The AMC commended the school for taking family circumstances into account and for introducing wellbeing days, and noted flexible study policies developed with students. It also praised the good working relationship between course leaders and the student society, the Charles Sturt Health & Rural Medicine Society (CHARMS).

First Nations students are supported by an Associate Head of School for Indigenous Health, who started in July 2025, and an Indigenous Health Coordinator. The university's First Nations Student Connect team offers one-to-one tutoring and specialist advisers. The AMC commended Student Connect and Yarn Up, a program that brings students and staff together on Country. The school also plans an Elders in Residence program at each clinical school.

The school publishes inherent requirements, the abilities you need to complete the course, and the Course Director or a Disability Advisor can discuss reasonable adjustments with you. By 2027 the AMC wants a program-wide wellbeing strategy and clearer, culturally safe ways to report bullying, harassment and racism, after finding students were not always told what happened to complaints.