Starting Medical School Checklist

There are a number of requirements that you need to consider before or during your medical study. These include inherent requirements, police checks, health checks, and visas. Not all of these may apply to you, but it's best to check with your university.

Inherent requirements

You will be required to demonstrate various inherent requirements at entry and during the medical course, including:

• Knowledge and cognitive skills

• Literacy and numeracy

• Communication (verbal, non-verbal, written)

• Vision, hearing and tactile ability

• Mobility, gross motor skills and fine motor skills

• Sustainable performance

• No risk of interruptions to consciousness

• Ethical behaviour

• Monitoring and management of own health

• Legal compliance

If you have concerns about meeting the inherent requirements, a discussion should take place with your medical school about adjustments that can be made. Reasonable adjustments are made to assist students with a disability to ensure that all students are given the best possible opportunity to succeed in the course.

To ensure the safety of others

• Police checks: Your police certificate will either be a national or state police check, so it is important to check your schools requirements. Police checks typically must be no older than 12 months old. 

• Health checks: This needs to reflect a completed record of health screening and necessary immunisations. Some vaccinations require multiple inoculations over a period of time, so completing your vaccinations may require some planning.

• Working with children (WWC) check: WWC checks expire after 3 years so it is important to make sure that you have one that is valid. 

• Hand hygiene training: this will generally be provided by the university as an online module to complete within the first few weeks of your degree.

First aid certificate

You will need to provide a current first aid certificate. Your medical school may provide or subsidise first aid training, so make sure to check this before paying for a third-party first aid course.

Visas

If you are an international student, you will need a valid student visa. Visit the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs or New Zealand Immigration website for further details.