Fiji restricts general practitioners positions to local graduates

Fiji Medical Association (FMA) president Dr Alipate Vakamocea has confirmed that the Fiji Medical Council has approved a committee to establish medical internship standards, ensuring that positions for medical officers are reserved primarily for Fijian graduates.

Speaking at the FMA 2025 Annual Scientific Conference in Nadi yesterday, Dr Vakamocea highlighted growing interest from overseas medical graduates seeking work in Fiji.

“We have been receiving a lot of requests like people from Pakistan, India, China, Southeast Asia. They all have been messaging the Fiji Medical Association Facebook account asking how they can come and work in Fiji,” he said.

Dr Vakamocea said the council’s new committee will create a structured medical internship program, which may include an exam at the beginning or end of the internship.

“One of our main indicators over the next couple of years we discussed it multiple times in our conferences last year was looking at improving medical internship standard,” he said.

“The committee will have to decide, and this is going to be used as the standard for accepting even if we get external graduates coming into Fiji who want to be practicing, they will have to go through some sort of modified internship training.”

He stressed that the priority is to protect local graduates’ access to medical officer positions.

“We do not think that it is in the best interest of our graduated medical students to be giving away medical officer positions to people from outside Fiji,” Dr Vakamocea said.

Overseas doctors will only be considered for specialist roles where Fiji lacks expertise.

“Now the caveat here is unless you are a specialist… So, if you are a specialist we know those are the areas where we are unable to provide specialist services please come to Fiji,” he said.

Dr Vakamocea added that Fiji’s two medical schools graduate almost 200 students annually, and it is the FMA’s responsibility to ensure they have medical officer positions upon completing their internships.

“So, this is one of the position we have had for quite some time. And it all goes to enhancing the professional standard and competence,” he said.