Program at a Glance

Your first year establishes the scientific foundations of medicine. Teaching is organised into integrated blocks across the two semesters: 

Problem-based learning cases connect the science to real clinical presentations from the start. You'll also begin developing your communication and clinical skills, learning how to take a medical history and conduct a physical examination. 

Professional behaviours, medical ethics, and an introduction to First Nations culture and health are woven throughout.

A personalised learning portfolio is developed throughout this year. 

Teaching takes place on campus at Casuarina. Expect around 25-30 hours of contact time per week, matched by an equal commitment to self-directed study.

Building on Year 1, you'll deepen your understanding of the biomedical sciences through continued organ-system-based teaching across both semesters. Pharmacology, pathophysiology, and the mechanisms of major disease processes become central. 

Clinical reasoning skills are further developed through PBL, and your history-taking and examination skills grow in complexity. You'll also engage with epidemiology, evidence-based practice, mental health, global health, and the social determinants of health. 

You will continue to develop your personalised learning portfolio.

Teaching remains on campus, with the same rhythm of structured contact time and self-directed learning as year 1.

Year 3 marks a significant shift: you move into full-time clinical and community placements. As a member of a clinical team, you'll apply your biomedical knowledge in real patient settings — wards, outpatient clinics, operating theatres, emergency departments, and community health facilities.

Learning becomes largely opportunistic, guided by the patients you encounter and the teams you work alongside, while attachment guides outline the core conditions and skills to be achieved in each rotation.

Placements are based across the Northern Territory, including Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek, Alice Springs, and Nhulunbuy. For placements outside Darwin, accommodation is arranged for the duration of the attachment, giving you the opportunity to live and work as part of a remote or regional community — an experience that's central to understanding health service delivery across the NT. Contact time can exceed 40 hours per week — including evenings, weekends, and night shifts — delivered in blocks ranging from 5 to 9 weeks at a time.

Year 4 builds on this same model of immersive, placement-based learning, with the same live-and-work arrangements applying as you move into specialty and subspecialty rotations. You'll gain experience across major metropolitan hospitals, general practices, and rural or remote First Nations medical services, consolidating your clinical reasoning and procedural skills at a higher level of complexity and independence.

This is also the year you undertake your MD Project — a significant piece of scholarly research work — while your portfolio continues to develop, capturing your growth across all five curriculum themes. The breadth of placement settings in Year 4 is designed to prepare you for the diversity of medical practice in the NT and beyond.

Year 5, your final year, brings together everything you have learned. Continued placements in specialty areas develop near-independent clinical practice within the same live-and-work model, and MED601 Medicine in Practice — the final, integrative unit of the program — consolidates your readiness for internship.

By graduation, you will have met the Australian Medical Council graduate outcome domains across all four domains: clinical practice, professionalism and leadership, health and society, and science and scholarship.

You graduate with a Bachelor of Clinical Science Medicine / Doctor of Medicine.

Lectures are a key component of your learning and aim to provide either a framework on which to build learning, an exploration of a complex topic, or exposure to people or ideas not easily found elsewhere. CDU uses a lecture capture system so most lectures will have a recording.  You are encouraged to attend all lectures in person, as there will be opportunities to ask questions and interact with your peers. Some lectures will not be recorded due to cultural, clinical, intellectual property, or technical issues.  

Laboratories provide a practical way to extend and apply your knowledge and move into performing some practical skills or obtaining a better appreciation of the 3- dimensional structures of the human body and disease states. This teaching method will be used primarily for anatomy, physiology and pathology. 

Delivered throughout the program, these workshops build the cultural understanding, respect, and communication skills that underpin safe, effective and equitable care. Students explore topics including cultural safety, the social and cultural determinants of health, the strengths of First Nations communities, and the importance of working in genuine partnership with the people they serve.

Grounded in the NT context and shaped by First Nations leadership within the program, these workshops are a core part of preparing our graduates to be respectful, capable doctors ready to contribute to closing the gap in health outcomes.

Delivered in years 1 and 2, these workshops support students to develop as reflective, resilient and ethical practitioners. Students explore topics including professional identity and behaviour, communication and teamwork, ethics and professionalism, self-care and wellbeing, and the responsibilities that come with being a member of the medical profession.

The sessions also create space for students to reflect on their own experiences, learn from peers and mentors, and prepare for the personal and professional challenges of clinical practice. Together, they form a core thread running through the program — helping our graduates become not only capable clinicians, but thoughtful and well-rounded professionals.

PBL sessions involve students working in small groups to solve real-world problems, fostering critical thinking, collaboration, and self-directed learning.  

These use a combination of peer, simulated and real patients with which students can learn and practise communication skills, physical examination and some procedural skills. During the clinical years, there will be workshops focused on resuscitation skills, suturing, and other procedural skills. 

During the clinical units, revision and application of scientific knowledge will also occur, usually based on clinical practice. This will be run through an online platform, and you will be able to solve clinical case studies, collaboratively. 

Formative assessments provide the opportunity for students to receive feedback on performance without a mark being recorded. Formative assessments provide regular constructive feedback to the student and opportunities to improve prior to summative assessments.

Formative assessment may include:

• Systematically observing and monitoring students during in-class learning and teaching experiences or in clinical placements and providing brief, informal, immediate verbal feedback.
• Provide opportunities for students to present or report on their learning and teaching experiences.
• Feedback on performance in class/clinical practice, or by use of a tool such as a mini-CEX. This may include self-assessment, peer assessment, and team discussion/activities, as well as feedback on performance and contribution.
• Practice questions and examples made available for students to view, complete, and or self-mark. These questions will mimic the type used in the various assessments and may be available on the unit’s Learline site.

Summative assessments are those which contribute to a final mark or grade for a unit. Note that some summative assessment items within a unit may be regarded as a hurdle, for which passing or satisfactorily completing the assessment is required in order to progress to the next phase of the program.

Summative assessments in the MD include:

• Written examinations (e.g. MCQs; EMQs; SAQs; MEQs)
• Written assignments
• Clinical assessments (e.g. Min CEX, OSCE; Case-based Learning; Structured Clinical Assessments, EPAs)
• Professional Behaviour assessments (ongoing throughout MD Program)
• MD Portfolio
• Procedural skills log
• Workbook assessments (e.g. logbook)

The Australian Medical Council (AMC) requires all medical schools to have an assessment standard-setting process for written and practical exams. The CDU Menzies Medical Program written and objective structure clinical examinations are standard set by a group of content experts to ensure the quality of every question or station, and hence, the overall assessment is set to an acceptable standard of achievement.