Routes to GMC registration

Before anything else, work out which route applies to you, because every later step follows from it and the routes do not share a queue.

The General Medical Council sets out the routes on its own site, and that page is the authority for this — not this one. What follows is a description of the shape of the decision, so you know what you are reading when you get there.

What decides the route

Three things, roughly in this order:

• Where you qualified. A primary medical qualification from outside the UK is verified differently from one awarded here.
• Whether you hold an acceptable postgraduate qualification. Some are accepted in place of PLAB; most are not, and the list is the GMC's.
• Whether you are applying for provisional or full registration. These are different things and the evidence differs.

What every route needs

Whichever route applies, four things recur:

• evidence of your primary medical qualification, verified independently;
• evidence of your English language capability;
• evidence of your fitness to practise, which includes a certificate of good standing from every regulator you have been registered with;
• an identity check in person.

The steps that follow cover each of those.

What this page does not tell you

Fees. They change, sometimes annually, and a stale fee on a page like this is money somebody did not plan for. The GMC publishes its current fees on the page linked above; read them there.

Timescales. They depend on the route, on the volume the GMC is handling and on how quickly the bodies you need documents from respond. Where a duration appears on one of these pages it is described as typical rather than promised.