Emergency physician recruitment for regional employers

Emergency physicians examine and assess patients with acute and urgent illness or injury, order and interpret tests, resuscitate and stabilise patients, perform life-saving procedures and refer patients on to other doctors.⁹ In a regional hospital the emergency physician is often the most senior doctor on site after hours, with retrieval and transfer decisions to match.

Fellowship of the Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (FACEM) leads to specialist registration in emergency medicine. The FACEM Training Program takes at least five years full-time, and part-time training is available. It includes workplace-based assessments, research requirements and examinations.⁸ Specialist registration requires an approved qualification such as an accredited college fellowship, or an assessment by the college that the doctor is eligible for fellowship.¹⁰

Rural generalists with advanced skills in emergency medicine also staff many small-town departments, and every state and the Northern Territory runs a rural generalist training program.¹¹

Where the Medical Practitioners Award 2020 covers the role, a full-time Specialist earns at least $2,337.21 a week and a Senior Specialist from $2,499.10, before the 10% on-call allowance the award pays specialists, who must be available for reasonable on-call and recall duties (a Specialist's rate is $2,570.93 a week with it⁷), from 1 July 2026.⁶ The award covers employers of doctors in workplaces such as hospitals and day procedure centres, and does not cover employees under a state public sector award.⁶ Most regional emergency departments are public, so the state instruments in the table above usually set the pay.

No median is published for emergency physicians alone. The wider group of other medical practitioners, which also includes obstetricians and gynaecologists, ophthalmologists, dermatologists, pathologists and radiologists, had median full-time earnings of $5,013 a week in May 2025, nationally, counting employees only.⁵ We talk with you about the salary, private practice arrangements and allowances that will compete for your department.

Tell us the department: annual presentations if you track them, the hours a specialist is on the floor, the on-call roster after hours, and who backs up the doctor overnight. Then the level, from a newly fellowed FACEM to a director who will lead the department and its training.

Let us know whether the post is accredited for FACEM training, the retrieval and transfer arrangements, and whether a part-time or shared fellowship role would suit.

For many emergency physicians the roster decides the move: how many nights, how many specialists share the on-call, and how much time is protected for teaching. We look first for doctors with ties to your region, then for specialists ready to leave a city department.

Tell us about housing, relocation costs, study and conference leave, and flexibility such as part-time fellowship. We raise them in the first conversation.

If the right person needs a visa or sponsorship, our sister business Australian Immigration Agency can advise.

Register with Hire Australia and tell us your fellowship or training stage, your registration, the departments you have worked in and the towns that interest you. FACEMs and senior registrars are welcome, and we will talk with you about roles that fit.