Deakin medicine

Deakin medicine is Deakin University's Doctor of Medicine, a four-year graduate-entry degree taught in Victoria with a rural and regional focus. This page explains what the Deakin MD is, where the four years are spent, how the general stream, Rural Training Stream, and Indigenous Entry Stream select applicants, and what the interview involves. Published minimum scores are included where Deakin states them. This year's application dates, fees, and competitive cut-offs belong on the university's course page and the current GEMSAS Deakin entry.

Deakin medicine is a four-year Doctor of Medicine

Deakin medicine is the Doctor of Medicine (MD), course code H911. It is a four-year full-time higher degree, recognised in the Australian Qualifications Framework at Level 9, and students complete 32 credit points. On the Australian medical schools directory it sits with the other graduate-entry programs. The current primary medical program is this MD. The Australian Medical Council first accredited Deakin's medical school in 2007, when the award was a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery; that earlier award has been taught out and replaced by the MD. The degree details are on Deakin's Doctor of Medicine course page, and the taught-out award is recorded in the Australian Medical Council accreditation report for Deakin University School of Medicine.

The Australian Medical Council list of accredited medical schools lists the Doctor of Medicine as accredited until 31 March 2029, with reaccreditation due in 2028. Graduates receive provisional registration in Australia and New Zealand and can start a paid internship. Deakin states that domestic graduates are guaranteed an internship in Victoria. International graduates remain eligible for provisional registration, and the international course page states that an Australian internship is not guaranteed. The course is built around rural and regional practice, Indigenous health, and patient-centred care, as described on the Doctor of Medicine course page.

Where the Deakin MD is taught, and what the four years cover

General-stream students spend years 1 and 2 at the Geelong Waurn Ponds campus. Teaching is a mix of online classes and face-to-face work in lecture spaces, clinical-skills laboratories, and anatomy laboratories, with small-group learning and early placements in health services. Years 3 and 4 are spent at one Deakin Medical School site. Accepting a general-stream offer includes agreeing that the school may allocate any of those later-year sites, and that travel and living costs for placement are the student's responsibility. Campus teaching is set out on the Doctor of Medicine course page, and the allocation rule is in the commencing student guide for the general stream.

The course page names five sites for years 3 and 4:

• Eastern Health
• Geelong–Barwon
• Rural Communities
• Warrnambool–South West
• Ballarat–Grampians

Rural Communities locations are listed by Deakin and can change. Allocation uses student preferences and the places available, and a preference is not a guarantee. The Deakin University medicine course guide also describes an option to complete one third-year rotation in the Northern Territory. Rural Training Stream students are based at Warrnambool or Ararat for years 1 and 2, not at Waurn Ponds. That commitment is set out below.

Deakin groups the degree into foundations of medicine, then professional practice. Four themes run through it: medical science and clinical practice; public health medicine; ethics, law and professionalism; and Indigenous health. Both the course page and the medicine course guide describe those themes.

• Year 1 covers human biology, infection, defence and repair, and the cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and gastrointestinal systems, alongside communication, clinical reasoning, public health, ethics, law, professionalism, and Indigenous health.
• Year 2 covers metabolism and the musculoskeletal system, endocrine and lifecycle health, and brain and behaviour, and includes a transition to clinical practice.
• Year 3 is immersive placement in medicine, surgery, children's health, and obstetrics and gynaecology, including a longitudinal integrated clerkship and primary and community care. The course guide describes six rotations of about seven weeks, plus a research scholar program.
• Year 4 covers general practice, emergency medicine, anaesthetics and intensive care, aged care, rehabilitation, palliative care, and mental health, then pre-internship rotations, with the research scholar program continuing. The course guide describes six rotations of about five weeks.

The pre-internship work is the bridge into the first postgraduate year. How to become a doctor follows that path through internship, registration, and later specialty training. This page stays with the Deakin degree itself.

Students pass every unit, including every component. Recognition of prior learning is not available. An optional extracurricular research program sits alongside the degree. Before placement, students need a police check, a Working with Children Check, and an immunisation status the health service will accept. A service can refuse a placement when that record does not meet its rules, which stops progress in the course. Those conditions are on the Doctor of Medicine course page.

How general-stream applicants are selected

Domestic general-stream applicants apply through the Graduate Entry Medical School Admissions System (GEMSAS). Deakin treats Australian citizens, Australian permanent residents, and New Zealand citizens as domestic students for this course. Selection combines a weighted grade point average from an approved degree, a GAMSAT ^® result, any Deakin adjustments the applicant qualifies for, and a multiple mini interview. Meeting the published minimums makes an application eligible. It does not by itself win an interview or a place. Domestic status is on the Doctor of Medicine course page, and the eligibility point is also made on the Rural Training Stream page.

The qualifying study is an approved bachelor, honours, graduate certificate, graduate diploma, or masters by coursework. The minimum is a completed bachelor degree, or the final year of a bachelor that will be finished by the December deadline in the current Deakin and GEMSAS instructions. Deakin gives equal consideration to degrees from any discipline. GAMSAT ^® with a non-science background covers preparing for the test from that start. The qualifying-study rules are on the course page.

Deakin's published academic floor for the general stream is a weighted GPA of at least 5.0, calculated on the most recent three full-time-equivalent years. Those years are weighted ×1, ×2, and ×3 so the most recent year counts most. GEMSAS states that 2020 calendar-year results are left out of the calculation, with a separate method when too little of the final year was completed before 2020. Completed graduate certificates, graduate diplomas, and masters by coursework can count toward the GPA when they meet the completion date in that guide. A higher degree by research can help the ten-year currency rule and is not used in the GPA. The calculation is set out in the GEMSAS Deakin University entry.

The qualifying degree must have been completed within ten years of the projected start date. An older degree can still be considered when the applicant has finished at least half a year of full-time study (0.5 FTE) at honours, graduate certificate, graduate diploma, or masters by coursework level, inside that ten-year window, by the date the guide sets. Deakin does not accept a two-year bachelor degree for this course. An accelerated degree that is three full-time-equivalent years, completed over two calendar years, can be accepted. More than one full-time-equivalent year of credit from study below AQF Level 7 is not accepted, and credit from the International Baccalaureate is not accepted. Those limits are in the GEMSAS Deakin University entry.

General-stream applicants also need a GAMSAT ^® result: a minimum of 50 in each of the three sections and an overall score of at least 50. The course page requires that GAMSAT ^® or MCAT result to have been obtained within four years preceding the year of application. What the GAMSAT ^® is explains the exam. How graduate-entry schools weight GPA and GAMSAT ^® against each other, including schools that treat the sections differently, is kept on medical school entry requirements. For a Deakin general-stream interview, the published combination is an equal weighting of GPA and GAMSAT ^®, plus any adjustments that apply. The minimums and that weighting are on the Doctor of Medicine course page.

Those floors decide eligibility. The combination that received an interview in a given year is a separate figure, and Deakin does not publish it as a standing cut-off. Cohort snapshots, when Deakin shows them, stay on the course page.

Undergraduate medicine pathways use the UCAT ^®. UCAT ^® for medicine and UCAT ^® scores explain that test and how to read a result. The Deakin MD is graduate entry. Where it asks for an admissions test, that test is the GAMSAT ^®, with the exceptions in the pathway section below.

Adjustments added to the combined score

Deakin can add a percentage adjustment to the combined GPA and GAMSAT ^® score used for ranking. The Doctor of Medicine course page lists the current categories:

• Rural or regional residence. At least ten years cumulative, or any five years consecutive, in a Modified Monash Model area. Residence in MM2, or in Geelong classified MM1, is a 4% adjustment. Residence in MM3–MM7 is an 8% adjustment. This adjustment is separate from a Rural Training Stream application, and a rural-background applicant can also apply for that stream.
• Prior clinical experience. A 4% adjustment after one year full-time equivalent in clinical practice as an AHPRA-registered health professional, or in speech pathology or dietetics, on the hours rules on the course page.
• Work experience. A 2% adjustment after full-time paid work on the hours rules on the course page. Clinical experience and work experience are alternatives. An applicant claims one of them.
• Financial disadvantage. A 2% adjustment when approved Centrelink, Department of Veterans' Affairs, StudyLink, or similar payments were received for at least twelve months during recent study. The course page names the payments that count.
• Deakin study. A 4% adjustment when at least two-thirds of an undergraduate or postgraduate award was completed at Deakin, either already conferred or due to be completed in the year of application. Recognition of prior learning from another institution does not count toward that two-thirds.

Eligible adjustments can be combined. The course page states there is no cap on that combined amount. The evidence list is on the course page and the GEMSAS Deakin entry.

For a general-stream interview, ranking is an equal weighting of GPA and GAMSAT ^®, plus any adjustments. GEMSAS caps the interview list at 220 applicants. The final aggregate is that academic bundle at 50% and the interview at 50%, and offers follow the ranked list and the places available. The weighting is on the course page and the GEMSAS Deakin University entry.

English language sits beside the academic rules. Deakin accepts a bachelor degree from a recognised English-speaking country, an IELTS overall score of 7.0 with no band below 7.0, or other evidence set out on the course page.

Rural Training Stream and the Indigenous Entry Stream

Two dedicated pathways sit beside the general stream and lead to the same Doctor of Medicine. Streams that still use the GAMSAT ^® need a result you can interpret with GAMSAT ^® scores. Deakin's own minimums stay on the course page. The Rural Training Stream and the Indigenous Entry Stream are the pathways that change who must sit the test.

Rural Training Stream

Each year, around 30 domestic places in the Doctor of Medicine are held for the Rural Training Stream. The stream is for applicants with a rural background who will train in rural Victoria. Places go first to eligible Tier 1 applicants, then Tier 2, then Tier 3, if places remain. Each tier requires evidence of at least ten years cumulative residence, or any five years consecutive after birth, entirely inside that tier. The place count and the tier rule are on the Rural Training Stream page.

• Tier 1 is Deakin's rural footprint: locations in the Western Victorian Primary Health Network classified MM3–MM6, plus MM2 locations in and around Ballarat, because Ballarat is a Deakin clinical school. Other MM1 and MM2 locations in that Primary Health Network, and the MM3 and MM4 locations on the Bellarine Peninsula, are outside Tier 1.
• Tier 2 is MM2–MM7 in rural Victoria.
• Tier 3 is MM2–MM7 in other rural areas of Australia.

Tier 1 applicants are ranked on academic results and a written application. The GAMSAT ^® requirement and the ten-year currency rule are waived for Tier 1. The weighted GPA floor of 5.0 still applies. Tier 2 and Tier 3 applicants need that same GPA floor, the general-stream GAMSAT ^® minimum of 50 overall and 50 in each section, a degree within the ten-year rule (or the further-study exception), and the written application. Those rules are on the Doctor of Medicine course page and the GEMSAS Deakin University entry.

The written application allows 1000 characters for each section: a rural community connection, an interest in rural medicine, and evidence the applicant can manage postgraduate study. For an interview, Tier 1 is ranked on GPA plus adjustments (50%) and the written application (50%). Tier 2 and Tier 3 use an equal weighting of GPA, GAMSAT ^®, and adjustments as that academic 50%, beside the written application at 50%. A course offer keeps the interview at 50%, the written application at 25%, and the same academic ingredients at 25%. The formulas are on the course page and the GEMSAS Deakin entry.

Applicants who have a GAMSAT ^® result and want this stream place Deakin first in GEMSAS. A missed Rural Training Stream place can still be considered for the general stream when the GAMSAT ^® result is valid. Declining a Rural Training Stream offer ends consideration for the general stream in that intake. An accepted place is a four-year rural commitment: years 1 and 2 are not at Geelong Waurn Ponds, and years 3 and 4 are not at Geelong–Barwon or Eastern Health. Leaving the stream means giving up the place in the course. That commitment is set out on the course page and the GEMSAS Deakin entry.

Years 1 and 2 mix online classes with one to two mandatory on-site days each week at Warrnambool or Ararat. Students nominate a preference. The allocation is not guaranteed, and some classes are still at Waurn Ponds. Years 3 and 4 are allocated in second year to Ballarat–Grampians, Warrnambool–South West, or Rural Communities, independent of the earlier site. Students are expected to live locally to that clinical site. The Rural Training Stream page sets out those sites.

Indigenous Entry Stream

The Indigenous Entry Stream is a direct application to the School of Medicine for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander applicants, run in partnership with Deakin's National Indigenous Knowledge Education Research Innovation (NIKERI) Institute. Applicants identify as an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander person, provide confirmation of that identity from their community, and meet the academic requirements on the course page, including the weighted GPA floor. The GAMSAT ^® is not required. An applicant who already has a GAMSAT ^® result can include it. Selection uses academic performance, the information on the application form, and an interview. The pathway is described on the Indigenous Entry Stream page and the Doctor of Medicine course page.

The stream page publishes the form, the email address, and the closing date. GEMSAS also allows First Nations applicants to apply through the medicine application, with its own date for a Confirmation of Aboriginality from an incorporated Indigenous organisation. Use the GEMSAS Deakin University entry and the Indigenous Entry Stream page for the current dates.

The Deakin medicine interview

Deakin interviews shortlisted applicants with an online multiple mini interview: up to six stations, with five minutes for each interaction. The guide to MMIs covers how this station format works and how to prepare. Deakin's own station count, timing, and scoring rules are the ones in the current GEMSAS Deakin entry and on the course page.

The stations may assess communication, commitment to rural and regional practice, evidence-based practice, self-directed learning, teamwork, motivation for a career in medicine, commitment to social justice, professionalism, effective use of resources, and health promotion. The course page sets a minimum overall interview score of 50%, and states that an eligible applicant who scores below 2 on any station is reviewed. Interview timing for the intake is published on the course page and in the GEMSAS Deakin entry. Use those pages for the month and the year, rather than a date copied from a previous guide.

Places, fees, dates, and cut-offs

Applicants tell GEMSAS which Deakin place types they are willing to accept. A type that is not listed will not be offered. Deakin then offers Commonwealth supported places first and bonded medical places next, down the merit order, until the quotas are filled. The order is on the GEMSAS course place offers and quotas page.

GEMSAS lists expected quotas for a 2027 start as 100 Commonwealth supported places, 45 bonded places, and up to 15 international places, 160 in total. The figures are indicative. Thirty domestic places are reserved for the Rural Training Stream, in addition to a minimum rural allocation of 25% of domestic places, and the school aims to recruit 50% of the cohort from rural applicants. Those figures are in the GEMSAS offers table and the GEMSAS Deakin entry. The course page states the rural rule in different words: at least 50% of all course places, Rural Training Stream and general stream together, go to applicants who meet rural-background criteria. Read both the course page and the GEMSAS pages for the intake. They are the two current descriptions.

A bonded place is still a Commonwealth supported place in the Doctor of Medicine. The Australian Government's Bonded Medical Program asks participants to work in an eligible location after graduation. That later work commitment sits on the same path to registration that how to become a doctor describes.

International applicants apply to Deakin directly, not through GEMSAS. They may use a GAMSAT ^® or an MCAT result. The current minima, the English-language rule, and the interview rounds are on the international course page and the GEMSAS Deakin entry.

The course page publishes the current student contribution for a Commonwealth supported place, and the international page publishes international tuition. Those dollar amounts change. Fee comparisons across Australian medical schools are kept on Australian medical schools. For Deakin's own figure, use the course page for the year you would start.

Application opening and closing dates, document deadlines, and the interview month are on the GEMSAS key dates page and the Deakin course page. Final-year offers are conditional on finishing the qualifying degree and supplying results by the deadline in the guide. GEMSAS states that if the recalculated GPA falls by 0.4 or less, the offer is confirmed, and if it falls by more than 0.4, or the conditions are missed, the offer is withdrawn. That condition is in the GEMSAS Deakin University entry. Deakin's course page states that deferral of a medical place is not available. An applicant who declines a course offer, or lets it lapse, is not considered for another place in that intake and can apply again in a later year, as set out on the GEMSAS offers page.

A competitive cut-off — the GPA and GAMSAT ^® combination that actually received an interview or an offer — is not a fixed number this page can hold. It moves with the applicant pool, the adjustments, and the places available. Deakin's published floors (weighted GPA 5.0, and GAMSAT ^® 50 overall and in each section where the test is required) are the eligibility minimums only.

Deakin medicine FAQs

Is Deakin medicine a graduate degree?

Yes. The Deakin MD is a four-year full-time Doctor of Medicine for applicants who already hold, or are in the final year of, an approved bachelor degree. Deakin lists it as course H911, an AQF Level 9 award. The Australian Medical Council accredits it until 31 March 2029.

Do I need a science degree for the Deakin MD?

Deakin gives equal consideration to an approved bachelor, honours, graduate certificate, graduate diploma, or masters by coursework from any discipline. The weighted GPA still has to meet the published floor, and the general stream still needs a GAMSAT result.

Does the Deakin MD require the GAMSAT?

General-stream applicants, and Rural Training Stream Tier 2 and Tier 3 applicants, need a GAMSAT result of at least 50 overall and at least 50 in each section. Indigenous Entry Stream applicants, and Rural Training Stream Tier 1 applicants, can apply without a GAMSAT. A result that is used must fall within the four-year window on the course page.

Does Deakin medicine use the UCAT?

The Deakin MD is a graduate-entry degree. Where it requires an admissions test, that test is the GAMSAT. Undergraduate medicine pathways use the UCAT, which is a different exam and a different set of courses.

What is Deakin's Rural Training Stream?

It is about 30 domestic places for applicants with a rural background who commit to all four years at rural sites. Places go to Tier 1 (Deakin's Western Victorian rural footprint), then Tier 2 (rural Victoria), then Tier 3 (other rural Australia), if places remain. Years 1 and 2 are at Warrnambool or Ararat. Years 3 and 4 are at Ballarat–Grampians, Warrnambool–South West, or Rural Communities.

Where do Deakin medical students study?

General-stream students spend the first two years at the Geelong Waurn Ponds campus. Years 3 and 4 are at one of Deakin's medical school sites: Eastern Health, Geelong–Barwon, Rural Communities, Warrnambool–South West, or Ballarat–Grampians. Rural Training Stream students do not use Waurn Ponds as their base.

How does the Deakin medicine interview work?

Shortlisted applicants sit an online multiple mini interview of up to six stations, with five minutes at each. GEMSAS currently caps the interview list at 220 people. For the general stream, the interview is half of the final offer score. Station format and practice sit on the MMI guide; Deakin's scoring rules sit on the course page and the GEMSAS entry.

Where are this year's Deakin medicine dates, fees, and cut-offs?

On the Doctor of Medicine course page and the GEMSAS Deakin entry. Deakin publishes minimum GPA and GAMSAT scores for eligibility. The score that received an interview changes with the applicant pool and is not a standing cut-off. The current student contribution, international tuition, application dates, and interview dates are updated on those pages.