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Two-year medical internship program.
Internship is the two-year, paid first phase of practice every South African doctor completes after graduating, before community service.
Once you graduate you register with the HPCSA as an intern and complete a structured two-year programme at an accredited facility. It's a statutory requirement under the Health Professions Act (Section 61).
On the current model, year one is three months each of Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Obstetrics & Gynaecology and Paediatrics. Year two is six months of Family Medicine (covering casualty, outpatients, primary-care and district hospitals, ENT and ophthalmology) plus two months each of Orthopaedics, Anaesthetics and Psychiatry. There is no exit exam. You complete a logbook across the prescribed domains.
You don't apply to hospitals individually. Posts are allocated through the National Department of Health's Internship & Community Service Placement (ICSP) system, which runs an annual and a mid-year cycle; priority goes to South African citizens, then permanent residents.
General guidance, summarised from the HPCSA (Medical & Dental Board) and the National Department of Health’s ICSP. Rules and rotation models change, so always confirm the current requirements with the HPCSA and ICSP before you rely on them. See our methodology.
Each rotation is signed off in the HPCSA logbook. The council is strict about the duty-certificate forms (such as Form 10A): a form with any error, correction, alteration or smudge can be rejected. Keep spare blank copies and redo a form cleanly rather than correcting it. For the full registration sequence, see our HPCSA registration guide.
Your first point of contact is your intern representative (a fellow intern). An intern coordinator (a senior doctor) runs interns within a department, the head of department signs your logbook for that rotation, and the intern curator (a clinical manager, superintendent or CEO recognised by the HPCSA) signs off your year and is the formal escalation point.
Internship has real limits on hours, overtime, supervision and accommodation. Know them: see working conditions & your rights and leave entitlements.
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