Internship in SA

An intern year marks the transition from student to medical practitioner. It provides the experience of applying the theory to the treatment of patients as a responsible professional. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) issues medical graduates with provisional registration to allow them to undertake this period of supervised practice.

The intern year involves at least 47 weeks of satisfactory, supervised clinical experience that includes:

• a core term of at least 10 weeks in medicine;
• a core term of at least 10 weeks in surgery;
• a term of at least eight weeks in a core emergency medicine rotation; and
• non-core rotations which make up the balance of the intern year. These provide opportunities to explore additional areas of medicine and surgery, anaesthesia, psychiatry, and less acute care such as rehabilitation medicine, palliative care and geriatrics and General Practice.

At the completion of the intern year, the employing hospital is required to certify that the internship has been completed satisfactorily, including details of completed rotations.  AHPRA will grant general registration when it receives confirmation that the internship has been satisfactorily completed, an application has been completed, a mandatory disclosure form has been signed, and the scheduled fee has been paid. The fee must be paid before commencing the second prevocational training year (PGY2).

There are four health networks in South Australia where you may undertake your intern year. During this year you may request or be required, to expand your clinical experience by undertaking one or more rotations at different training locations. This includes general practice rotations, rural rotations and other hospitals in South Australia that are, or may become, part of a training network.

For the intern year commencing January 2013 there were 276 intern positions available in South Australia. This figure will vary from year to year.