As an international medical graduate, you cannot practice medicine in the United Kingdom without GMC registration and a license to practice. There are several ways to obtain GMC registration; let’s discuss them in this article.
Types of Registration
There are four different registration types: provisional registration, full registration, specialist registration, and general practitioner registration.
Provisional Registration
This is awarded to both British and foreign doctors who have recently graduated medical school but have no internship experience. IMGs who obtain GMC registration through the PLAB route and have postgraduate experience, but whose experience does not meet GMC requirements for an acceptable internship pattern, are also granted provisional registration.
With provisional registration, the one and only job for which you are eligible to apply is an approved Foundation Year training post within the framework of the UK Foundation Programme.
Full Registration
Those medical professionals who have already finished their internships are eligible for this type of registration. In the United Kingdom, this is referred to as FY1. This is sometimes referred to as a “house job” in other parts of the world.
Specialist Registration
Specialist register doctors are those who have completed GMC-approved postgraduate specialty training in the United Kingdom (or equivalent).
GP register
General practitioners (GPs) in the UK are specialists in family and community medicine who have completed 5 years of postgraduate training.
In order to be listed as a general practitioner (GP), medical professionals need to finish both the 2-year Foundation Programme (or its equivalent) and the 3-year GP training programme in General Practice (or equivalent). This is typically equivalent to the training required to practice family medicine in other countries.