Submit your application

To help you prepare you can:

Make sure you check the key dates for important deadlines.

Interview and offer

If you're shortlisted, we’ll invite you to an online interview.

If your interview is successful, we’ll write to you with a formal offer. You’ll need to either accept or decline our offer within 2 days.

If you decline the offer, you can still:

If you don’t get offered a place, you still have time to apply for the general campaign.

Confirm your preferences

When you receive your offer, we'll ask you to confirm your preferences. We call this process live preferencing.

We'll give you a list of our internship locations which shows the number of:

  • positions available
  • people who have chosen this location as their first preference.

You can change your preferences to give yourself the best chance of getting a location you’re happy with. For example, if your first choice is popular, but your second choice isn’t, you might want to swap them around.

You can change your preferences as many times as you want during live preferencing, which usually lasts about a week. Your preferences are locked in when live preferencing closes.

Allocation

We try to give people their first preference, but it's not always possible when a particular location is very popular.

If we can't give you your first preference, we allocate places at each location in order of priority.

The order of placement priority is:

  1. approved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees in groups A and B
  2. applicants with approved special considerations
  3. applicants in group A
  4. applicants in group B.

If we still have more people than positions at a location (oversubscribed), we use a ballot system. Approved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees and trainees with approved special considerations are not part of the ballot. The only exception to this is if there are more approved Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander trainees preferencing a location than positions available.

Read about the eligibility criteria for groups A and B.

Find out how to apply for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander allocation, special considerations, and joint tickets.

Ballot process

For oversubscribed locations we:

  1. randomly select a hospital that is oversubscribed with group A trainees
  2. randomly select a group A trainee
  3. allocate the trainee to their next available preference
  4. repeat the process until either the number of positions and trainees match up, or there are no more group A trainees to ballot.

We do this for each location, until all group A trainees have a placement.

If there are any oversubscribed locations left, we repeat the same process with group B trainees. We keep doing this until we've placed everyone.

Offers confirmed

We'll tell you where you'll be doing your internship on the same day as all general interns, usually in mid-July.  All placements are final.

If you decline the placement you’re offered, you’ll be withdrawn from the pathway.

In exceptional circumstances, there might be a chance to change your placement using a:

  • rollback
  • transfer
  • swap.

We approve these requests on a case by case basis.

Rollback

If a position becomes available after offers go out, we try to fill it with someone who missed out on their first preference. We call this process rollback.

We’ll contact you if:

  • you're in group A
  • you didn't get your first preference
  • a place is available at a location that you listed as a higher preference than your allocated place.

Rollback only happens once. We'll tell you in advance if and when it's going to happen.

On the day, you must be:

  • available by phone (you can nominate someone else to speak to us if you’re not available)
  • ready to accept or decline the offer during the call.

We’ll only try to call you twice, so make sure you’re ready to answer.

During the call you can either accept or decline the new offer. If you accept, we'll send you an email with the details. You must reply to accept the offer by 2 pm the same day.

Transfers

If you’re a group A trainee, you can ask for a transfer to another rural generalist training hospital. Transfers can only happen after rollback.

How to request a transfer

  1. Email rural_generalist@health.qld.gov.au to tell us where you want to transfer.
  2. We’ll tell you if or when there’s a position available at that location.
  3. Discuss your request with medical recruiters at your current and requested hospitals.
  4. If both hospitals agree to the transfer, we'll send you a transfer form that both hospitals need to sign.

We approve transfer requests on a case by case basis.

Swaps

We’ll consider requests to swap placements if:

  • it's between rural generalist interns (you can’t swap with a general intern)
  • you've emailed us to have your name recorded on the QRGP swap register
  • it doesn't leave a vacancy in either location – you want to go to the hospital of your swap partner and they want to go to yours
  • the swap occurs before 1 November, the year before the internship starts.

If you don’t have someone to swap with, you can put in a request, and we’ll let you know if a match becomes available.

Medical recruiters and interns at both locations all need to agree to the swap.

We approve swap requests on a case by case basis.

Withdrawing your application

You can withdraw your application at any time by emailing rural_generalist@health.qld.gov.au.

If you withdraw before accepting an offer, there's no penalty.

If you withdraw after you've accepted a place, you may:

  • not be able to apply to any other Queensland Health intern program that year
  • be given lower priority if you apply again in the future.

Last updated: January 2025

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