Internal Medicine Physician

deneen · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 5:59 am Post subject: Internal Medicine Physician

Does anyone have any advice on how an Internal Medicine doc goes about transferring his license to NZ? Also what do I have to know about starting a practice? Not looking to work for someone else but to own a practice, preferably in a upper South Island rural setting. Any other doctors out there that have done it?

Tash · Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2004 3:16 pm Post subject:

Hi Deneen

I have a bit of info which may be of some help. We've been living in NZ for 13 months, having come over from the UK. I am not a doctor, but my husband is. He works as a Registrar in internal medicine. Registration for doctors is delt with by the New Zealand Medical Council. I assume you will be applying for Vocational Registration, as you are already a consultant (I think called Attendants in the States Confused

? ). The best source of info is the Council's website: www.mcnz.org.nz. In brief: you submit an application with all your qualifications and experience listed. If you graduated from a mainstream university, it is unlikely that your quals. will need to be assessed by the NZQA (NZ Qualifications Authority, I think). If you are not native english-speaking or did not train in an english uni, then you'll need an english test. I am fairly certain, but would not mind if I was corrected, that you would not be able to work for yourself straight away. This is because initially you will be granted probationary registration, and will have to work under supervision for 12 months. After that, you get vocational reg. and I assume set up a practice.
A caution: the policy governing medical registration is changing in September. If you go to the website above, click on Medical Registration. There are a whole lot of links in red, these are the new policy guidelines. The overall idea is still the same as I described above. I would suggest reading all the available info on voc. reg.
I'm afraid I can't help when it comes to setting up a practice. All I can offer is some anecdotal info, that Internal Medicine Physicians are needed in the country, and the upper South Island rural area is really nice

.

Hope this helps somewhat fingers crossed

.

Cheers
Tash

deneen

Tash, thank you for all of your information. It is nice to hear from someone else who has been through it. I am sending my husband to that site now and will relay your message to him. It seems that the real hurdle is that NZ medical training and US medical training have different names for the same part of training. What we call undergraduate degrees, medical school, medical degrees, internship, residency, and fellowship are different from those in NZ. This makes it difficult to fill out the forms. We don't know what the equivalent terms are. Do you or anyone else know where we can find a US/NZ medical training terms glossary?

Deneen

Tash · Posted: Wed Aug 04, 2004 1:29 pm Post subject:

Hi Deneen

I'm afraid I don't know where to find a glossary of terms, but the Medical Council webpage has a breakdown of how they assess overseas-trained doctors, without beeing too specific about the names of the training sections. Sometimes it's a bit difficult to understand what they mean though. Hopefully someone who knows a bit more will respond to this thread, but if there's anything else I can help with, I'll gladly do so.

Cheers
Tash