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Registering as a doctor – graduates from medical schools in countries outside the UK and EEA who have been selected for sponsorship under an arrangement approved by the GMC

This guidance provides registration information for doctors who:

• are nationals of countries outside the UK, European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland who graduated from medical schools outside the UK

OR

• are UK nationals who graduated from medical schools outside the UK, EEA or Switzerland

AND

• do not have EC rights (33kb, pdf)

AND

• hold an acceptable primary medical qualification (PMQ)

AND

• have been selected for postgraduate training by a UK medical Royal College or Faculty, or by one of a small number of postgraduate institutions.

For your first 12 months of full registration you will be required to work within an approved practice setting. This means that you will only be able to work in settings that have been approved by the General Medical Council as having sufficiently supportive and quality assurance systems aimed at improving quality in place.

For more information on approved practice settings, please see our page on approved practice settings (opens in a new window).

You can check that your sponsor is approved on our list of approved sponsors (opens in a new window).

Your application will be an online application. At the end of this guidance you will be given a link to enter our secure web portal which is called MyGMC.

Your steps to registration

• Obtain sponsorship from a GMC approved sponsor
• Liaise with your sponsor who will give you further instructions
• Read this guidance (14 pages)
• Set up a MyGMC account
• Log in to MyGMC, complete your application and pay your fee
• Send copies of your supporting documentary evidence by post (your sponsor may do this on your behalf)
• Visit one of our offices for an identity check

There is more information about these steps on the following pages of this guidance.

Important licensing information

The licence to practise will be introduced on 16 November 2009. To practise medicine after licensing begins, doctors will, by law, need to be registered with a licence to practise. All newly registered and newly restored doctors will automatically be granted a licence to practise when licensing is introduced. You can find out more in our licensing and revalidation guidance.