The UNSW Medicine course

In Phase 1 your learning revolves around your scenario group. Each course is built on scenarios showing work a new doctor might do, which your group discusses and follows up, with lectures, practicals, tutorials, online lessons and hospital visits alongside. In each course you also complete an individual assignment and a group project on topics you choose from the course themes, so part of what you study is up to you.

Phase 2 moves to practice-based learning. Each year 3 clinical term is organised around weekly themes linked to clinical presentations, covered on the wards, in lectures and in tutorials. Each week ends with a case method tutorial that you prepare for and that pulls the week together. Some quality, safety and professionalism sessions use team-based learning, where you prepare in advance and then solve problems as a team.

In Phase 3 formal teaching is deliberately limited so that you spend your time with patients. You join clinical teams, take the history and examine newly admitted patients, present them on ward rounds and take on tasks under supervision, working to a learning plan agreed with your supervisor. A biomedical sciences program continues alongside, with hospital tutorials, campus days, medical imaging seminars and pathology laboratory visits.

The AMC report found that students learned with other health professions mostly informally on placement, and set UNSW a condition to build a structured interprofessional program by 2026. It also noted a tilt towards hospital care over general practice. The redesign lists interprofessional education among its workstreams and adds GP placements in years 3, 4 and 6.

Anatomy is taught by UNSW's Department of Anatomy, which teaches gross anatomy, histology (tissues under the microscope) and embryology (how the body develops) to medical and other students. The department says its students learn hands-on in its anatomy facilities, using bodies donated to the university alongside digital technology. In Phase 1 anatomy sits inside the life-cycle courses as practical classes.

It is examined through the cumulative practical exam, three tests spread across Phase 1. Anatomy and neuroanatomy form one of its four discipline groups, and you need a cumulative pass in each group. In year 3, one angle you can take in a case assignment is the patient's normal anatomy and how it explains their signs and scans. The AMC report noted that students valued the university's licences for Complete Anatomy, a 3D anatomy platform.

Anatomy returns in years 5 and 6 through anatomy workshops on campus days, run as combined in-person and online sessions, and seminars on chest, head and spine, abdominal and cancer imaging. Anatomical specimens and scans can be used in the Biomedical Sciences Viva at the end of year 5.

You start with simulated patients. Communication skills teaching begins in Foundations, and most Phase 1 courses then include clinical skills classes on campus with simulated patients, while online sessions on OSPIA add more practice. Phase 1 focuses on communication, taking a history and correct examination technique, and you are not expected to make diagnoses yet. Before entering a hospital you must meet NSW Health requirements, including vaccinations, a police check and online training modules.

Hospital sessions begin in the second course of year 1, Beginnings, Growth and Development A, and continue fortnightly through Phase 1. Kensington students go to Sydney teaching hospitals, and the Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga cohorts to regional hospitals. You examine real patients to learn the range of normal, and a logbook records your attendance. The AMC report notes that all students take part in an Aboriginal health immersion activity in year 1.

In year 3 you spend three days a week, about 60% of your time, on placement. That means your home hospital, a women's or children's hospital or, in the Society and Health term, community services including general practices. You take focused histories, examine patients and begin reasoning about diagnoses. Year 4 adds the weekly GP session, and in years 5 and 6 you work within clinical teams almost full time.

Assessment is built around the eight graduate capabilities. Assignments, projects and many clinical assessments are graded F (fail), P- (needs more work), P (meets expectations) or P+ (exceeds them). Clinical skills are assessed on placement as well as in formal exams. Several exams are barrier assessments: you must pass them to progress, whatever your other results.

An OSCE moves you through timed stations, each testing one task, such as examining a patient or explaining a diagnosis. In Phase 1 each course ends with a 2-hour written exam, roughly 40% multiple-choice and 60% short-answer questions, with a pass mark of 50%. At the end of year 2 you must pass a written exam (80 multiple-choice questions in 120 minutes, plus the practical tests), a six-station OSCE and the portfolio examination.

The Phase 2 Integrated Clinical Examination (ICE) at the end of year 3 has two equally weighted parts, and you must pass both. One is an OSCE; the other is a written paper of six image-identification questions and 48 single best answer questions. Sydney students sit the OSCE at a campus other than their own. The ILP or Honours is marked on your written work, presentations and your supervisor's report.

In years 5 and 6 each course is graded mainly on the learning plan your supervisor completes, plus tasks such as case reports, presentations and at least one observed clinical assessment. The final Phase 3 ICE, after the third teaching period of year 6, has a multiple-choice paper (30%), an OSCE (40%) and a structured oral viva (30%). You must pass each of the seven core disciplines and clinical pharmacology separately.

Each phase ends with a portfolio examination in which you reflect on your development against the capabilities. In year 6 you must reach P or better in all eight, through a 1,200-word essay and a 30-minute online interview that opens with your 7-minute presentation. The AMC report described the course as assessment dominant.

All of this describes the current course. If you start in 2027, years 3 to 6 fall in the redesigned course, which plans a move to programmatic assessment, where many smaller assessments are combined over time to judge your progress. The exams described here for those years may therefore change.

In Phase 1 the largest group is taught at Kensington and goes to Sydney hospitals for its clinical sessions, while smaller cohorts are based at Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga. From Phase 2 you are allocated to a clinical campus for the whole phase. You also rotate to general practices and private hospitals across NSW and north-eastern Victoria. Some year 3 terms, and the Psychiatry, O&G, Children's Health and Primary Care courses, may take you away from your home campus.

You give preferences during year 2 for Phase 2 and during year 4 for Phase 3, and a Clinical Allocations Committee decides. You are told at least three months before the phase starts and can swap with a student in the same category within two weeks. Preferences are not guaranteed, and home address, access to a car, accommodation, paid work and finances are not normally considered. Serious health needs, being a parent or carer, elite sport or music, and a concurrent PhD at UNSW can be.

All domestic students must complete a rural placement of at least four weeks, mostly in year 5, through a GP attachment, a hospital attachment, the Elective or the Selective. For Sydney-based students, the redesign plans a longer seven-week rural placement in year 5. The AMC report found that 30% of the cohort did a year-long rural placement.

Rural Entry Admission Pathway (REAP) students are expected to train rurally from start to finish. Those who start Phase 1 at Port Macquarie or Wagga Wagga stay at a rural campus for Phases 2 and 3. Any who start at Kensington because the rural campuses are full move to a rural campus for the rest of the course. Other domestic students placed rurally stay for the whole phase.

If you are placed at a rural campus for Phase 2 or 3, you sit your exams there, although supplementary exams may be in Sydney at your own cost. There is no up-front funding, but you may be able to claim back relocation costs under faculty policy. Students placed rurally for Phase 3 take every Phase 3 course except the Selective and Elective at that campus. A research project done at a rural campus does not count towards the rural requirement.

The Elective is a compulsory 8-week course at the start of year 6, taken as one placement or two of four weeks. It can be outside UNSW's teaching sites, in Australia or overseas, and can help you explore a career, see a different health system, fill a gap in your skills or do research. Overseas placements must be in countries at level 1 or 2 of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) travel advice. You must also apply for at least one Australian placement as a back-up.

Overseas placements take a long time to arrange, so the faculty suggests starting in year 4. Your elective must be approved before it begins or it will not count. Afterwards you write an elective report, which is part of your final portfolio. The redesign keeps the 8-week Elective in year 6.

At present, four students a year take their year 5 O&G and Paediatrics rotations on exchange at the University of Oslo in Norway, from about mid-August to mid-December, taught in English. You need at least a credit average with no more than one failed course, and you pay your own travel and living costs. Your Elective can be split around the exchange.

The Selective is a separate 8-week course in a discipline of your choice, taken at a UNSW-affiliated metropolitan or rural hospital or general practice. Students already allocated to a campus get priority there.

Research is built into the course rather than optional. The Independent Learning Project (ILP), also called MD Research, sits inside the MD. BSc(Med) Honours is a separate one-year degree taken in place of the ILP, so Honours students graduate with a third qualification alongside the BMed and MD.

Honours has entry requirements: an average mark of at least 65 across the Phase 1 life-cycle courses, not needing to repeat year 3, and your general education courses finished before year 4 begins. Failing key Phase 1 or Phase 2 assessments moves you back to the ILP. Honours comes as a research-intensive stream or a coursework-intensive stream with more specialised coursework, and the options listed include clinical AI.

Projects must test a hypothesis or answer a research question with data: for example a laboratory or clinical study, a new analysis of an existing dataset, or a systematic review with meta-analysis. Case reports, descriptive audits and reviews without meta-analysis do not qualify. Your supervisor designs the project and arranges ethics approval, and interstate and overseas projects are not accepted.

Students who already hold a research Honours degree or a research higher degree can be exempted from the ILP. If you want to complete a separate master's degree, you must take a year's leave from Medicine, and the faculty strongly advises doing so before Phase 3.

You can also add an arts degree. During year 1 you can apply to transfer at the end of the year from Medicine (program 3805) to the combined Medicine/Arts program (3856), which adds a Bachelor of Arts to the BMed MD. The Arts part is 96 units of credit: a major and a minor plus electives, or two majors. It takes 8 years in total, or 7 if your year 4 Independent Learning Project is an approved arts-focused project.

In Phase 1, clinical skills classes are held on campus in the Clinical Skills Centre. At Kensington, the AMC report describes the faculty's teaching spaces in the Wallace Wurth Building, including clinical skills simulation space and physiology teaching laboratories, plus central lecture theatres used for Phase 1. The Samuels Building, used in Phases 2 and 3, has a pathology museum.

In the Randwick precinct next to Kensington, the new UNSW Health Translation Hub opened in November 2025. UNSW says its School of Clinical Medicine, which manages the course, is to be based there, and the building includes a clinical skills and simulation centre.

Each Sydney clinical campus has UNSW teaching rooms and a Clinical Teaching Unit in its hospital; at St Vincent's the clinical school is on level 5 of the De Lacy building. Students told the AMC that Liverpool offered supervised simulation labs. Rural campuses have teaching rooms, computer labs and clinical skills facilities, with simulation labs at Wagga Wagga and Albury. In February 2025 UNSW welcomed students to a new Biomedical Sciences Centre in Wagga Wagga.

Each Phase 1 student has a Portfolio Advisor for academic advice on the portfolio: at Kensington by surname, with one advisor each at Port Macquarie and Wagga Wagga. In Phase 2 there is a portfolio advisor at each clinical site, and in Phase 3 the Director of Medical Education at your site can help. Advisors will not read drafts of your essay.

The Clinical Mentoring Scheme pairs students in years 3 to 6 with one of more than 150 clinician mentors, working on goals such as clinical skills and career planning. The redesign plans more peer and formal mentoring with alumni, staff and industry.

You can take up to eight self-care days a year, planned days off for your wellbeing, registered at least a day ahead and never on an assessment day. Wider help comes from a Faculty Wellbeing Officer, Rural Wellness Advisors for the rural campuses, clinical campus administrators trained in mental health first aid, and free Employee Assistance Programs in NSW Health teaching hospitals. Rural students can also use the Rural Adversity Mental Health Program, which UNSW Medicine partners with.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students have a dedicated faculty support contact and Nura Gili, UNSW's centre for Indigenous students. The AMC report notes that the faculty funds the Rural and Allied Health Medical Society, the main peer support for rural-entry students.