how to become a surgeon

You can download this infographic as a jpeg and print it out.

From high school

Check with the university or universities you are applying to about the entry requirements for high school graduates. This may involve:

UCAT – you may need to register for and sit the Undergraduate Clinical Aptitude Test and achieve a high score
HSR – your high school rank at the end of grade 12 may need to be an ATAR of 99 or better for direct entry into medical school, but it is lower for some medical schools; click here for ATAR and entry requirements for every medical school in Australia in 2018
Interview – an interview my also be used by the university as a way of selecting which students will gain entry into their medical school

Some universities offer a 5 or 6 year undergraduate medical degree.

Some universities offer a slightly different pathway for high school graduates. If you have provisional entry into medicine from high school, you will do a 2 year accelerated undergraduate degree (e.g. Biomedical Science) before entering medical school. In this pathway you will do a 4 year medical degree following on from your 2 year accelerated biomedical science / health science degree.

Graduate entry

Check with the university or universities you are applying to about the entry requirements for university graduates. This may involve:

GAMSAT – you may need to register for and sit the Graduate Medical School Admissions Test and achieve a high score (click here for Dr Gerry Considine's tips for GAMSAT success)
GPA – your grade point average, that is, the average of your grades in your undergraduate university degree (the highest being 7) may be used as part of the entry criteria
Interview – an interview my also be used by the university as a way of selecting which students will gain entry into their medical school

In Australia the medical degree is generally 4 years when you are entering as a university graduate.

Medical Degree (4 to 6 years)

As you will have noted above, Medical degrees in Australia are between 4 and 6 years depending on whether you are coming into the degree as a university undergraduate or graduate.

Internship (1 year)

During this year a number of rotations are completed in different departments in a hospital.

Residency (1 or more years)

More rotations in a hospital. Some residents stay in this part of the medical training pathway for a number of years before they can gain entry into the vocational training program of their choice.

Vocational training (5+ years)

FRACS – It takes 5 to 6 years to complete a Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, depending on whether you want to become a cardiothoracic surgeon, a general surgeon, a neurosurgeon, and orthopaedic surgeon, an otolaryngologist (head and neck surgeon), a paediatric surgeon, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, a urologist, or a vascular surgeon. Some surgeons with then sub-specialize in a particualar area, which means more training.
Gaining entry into the program to complete a Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons is very competitive