Australian National University Medical School

The Australian National University Medical School (ANUMS) is a graduate medical school that received the Australian Medical Council (AMC) accreditation for the M.B., B.S. program in November 2003. Under the leadership of the Foundation Dean, Professor Paul Gatenby, the first cohort of students commenced in February 2004. The current Dean of Medicine is Professor Nicholas Glasgow and Deputy Dean of Medicine Professor David Ellwood.

The medical school houses nationally and internationally renowned academics and clinicians, including Dr. Simon O'Connor, co-author of the popular clinical textbook, Clinical Examination.

The first enrolment was in 2004. The ANUMS program is a four-year graduate medical degree, being thematic in concept and using problem based learning as the principal method of instruction particularly in the first two years.

The themes include:
-Medical Sciences - 45%
-Clinical Skills - 30%
-Population Health - 15%
-Professionalism and Leadership - 10%

These themes were selected as being important knowledge and professional domains that medical graduates will need in the 21st century. Doctors require competency in basic medical sciences such as anatomy and physiology as well as defined clinical skills. This includes communicating with patients and their relatives, being able to elicit a history, examine a patient and use the principles of evidence based practice. Population health grows in importance as the world’s population grows; doctors must appreciate that there are perspectives different from their individual patients' and that great health gains are really only made at the population level. Doctors also require an understanding of health law medical ethics and international human rights as well as an ability to reflect on their own performance and capacity.

Teaching is on the ANU campus, particularly in the first two years. Patient contact is from early in the course with much of the last two years taught in the health sector, both in the ACT and in surrounding NSW. In the ACT the principal teaching hospital is the Canberra Hospital. Students also go to Calvary Hospital, to facilities of ACT Community Care and selected general practices. In surrounding NSW a Rural Clinical School has been established. A select group of students will be invited to spend the third year of the course in a rural curriculum that runs parallel to the urban based curriculum.

The ANU Medical School has links with the ACT Department of Health and Community Care and the Southern Area Health Service of the NSW Health system. Canberra, the "bush capital", is very close to the small population centres of south-eastern NSW. The school takes advantage of the diversity of the surrounding area and provides rural experience from very early in the course in locations such as Yass, Queanbeyan, Bega, Batemans Bay, Goulburn and Cooma, all of which are within a few hour's travelling distance of Canberra, as well as Young. Students have the opportunity to spend one of their clinical years in a rural setting, learning medicine, surgery, obstetrics and gynaecology synchronously while their urban colleagues rotate through traditional blocs.

Admission was previously via a combination of grade point average (GPA) of a previous undergraduate degree and the Graduate Australian Medical School Admissions Test (GAMSAT) weighted 50:50 and a pass/fail interview. From 2013 entry onwards, the GPA and GAMSAT score are weighted 50:50 to produce a ranked list of applicants for the interview, and offers of place are based on a total score of 50:50 weighting of the composite score (used for the interview ranking) and the interview score. Places include Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP), Bonded Medical Places (BMP), Medical Rural Bonded Places (MRBS) and International Full Fee Places (IFP).