• Skip to main content
  • Skip to navigation
  • Accessibility
  • Contact Us
Government of Western Australia Crest
Government of Western Australia
Government of Western Australia Crest

Additional Menu

  • Accessibility
  • Contact us
Go to WA Government search
  • About SMHS
    • Health Service Board
    • Strategic focus
      • Vision and values
      • Strategic Plan
      • Annual Report
      • Environmental sustainability
      • Innovation
    • Executive
    • Conduct and standards
    • Freedom of Information
    • Governance
    • SMHS Excellence Awards
    • Pulse
    • Contact SMHS
  • Our services
    • Our hospitals
    • Elective surgery
      • Contracted medical practitioners
    • Outpatients
    • COVID-19 information
      • SMHS staff self-reporting
    • Aboriginal health
    • SMHS Mental Health
      • Lived experience
      • SMHS-wide mental health services
      • Fiona Stanley and Fremantle Hospitals
      • Peel and Rockingham Kwinana
      • SMHS mental health referrals
      • Work for us
      • Building for the future
      • Peel Mental Health Taskforce
    • Health promotion
      • Our priorities
      • Public health planning
    • Community Services
      • Home Hospital
    • Health care snapshot
    • SMHS Online Services Portal
    • Western Australian Limb Service for Amputees
    • Library and Information Service
  • Our care
    • Safe, quality care
      • Reduce your falls risk
      • Preventing pressure injuries
      • Supporting patients with cognitive impairment
      • Understanding delirium
      • Hand hygiene
      • MySay healthcare survey
      • Healthcare associated infections
      • "What matters to you?"
    • Understanding where you will receive care
    • For overseas visitors and students
    • Patient rights
    • Patient stories
    • Private patients
    • Support for carers
      • If you can't visit an older patient
  • Our community
    • Consumer experience
    • Partnering with consumers
      • Community advisory councils
      • 'Put it to the People' engagement platform
    • Engaging with our community
      • GP Engage
      • Fiona Wood Public Lectures
      • Voluntary assisted dying podcasts
      • Health Stories podcasts
    • Disability access and inclusion
      • DAIP strategies
      • DAIP initiatives
      • Supporting people with disability
    • Pulse
    • SMHS HealthReady Pipeline
      • About HealthReady
      • Get involved in HealthReady
      • Current HealthReady projects
    • Our volunteers
  • Our research
    • About research at SMHS
    • Current research
      • Allied Health Research Unit
      • Nursing and Midwifery Research Unit
    • Our research stories
    • For researchers
      • SMHS Research Integrity Advisors
    • Participate in our research
      • Valuing the consumer voice
  • Work with us
    • Career opportunities
      • Aboriginal workforce
      • Allied health and health professionals
      • Clinical academics
      • Corporate and non-clinical careers
      • Medical
      • Mental health
      • Nursing and midwifery
    • Employee benefits
    • Apply for a job
    • Living in WA
  • News
  1. Home
  2. Work with us
  3. Career opportunities
  4. Medical
  5. Intern opportunities

Intern opportunities

Offering internship opportunities across our hospital network and rural locations

Intern opportunities

South Metropolitan Health Service (SMHS) employs more than 135 interns each year across our hospital network, with our catchment area stretching 3,300 square kilometres across the southern half of Perth.

As the largest employer of interns in WA, SMHS is committed to supporting the orientation, education, training and wellbeing of our interns. This vision includes the provision of a dedicated onsite Doctor Support Unit team that provides our interns with:

  • rotations that meet National Framework internship requirements (external site)
  • a comprehensive intern orientation week, including a day paired with the outgoing intern you will be replacing in their first term
  • education and professional development opportunities at a hospital-wide level – see our sample medical education teaching calendar (PDF 278KB)
  • clinical training and wellbeing support, including an intern mentor program.

Intern rotations

In line with the WA Intern/RMO term dates (external site), SMHS interns rotate 5 times per year across a variety of sites and specialties, including:

  • burns
  • cardiology
  • cardiothoracic surgery
  • emergency medicine
  • endocrinology
  • ENT
  • gastroenterology
  • general and acute medicine
  • general and acute surgery
  • geriatric medicine
  • hyperbaric medicine
  • neonatology
  • nephrology
  • neurology
  • obstetrics and gynaecology
  • orthopaedic surgery
  • paediatrics
  • palliative care
  • plastic surgery
  • psychiatry
  • rehabilitation medicine
  • respiratory medicine
  • urology
  • vascular surgery.

For a full list of SMHS intern, resident and registrar placements available please visit our latest proposed junior doctor placements (PDF 2MB).

Learn more about our hospitals

Metropolitan opportunities

Our SMHS hospital network delivers quatenary, tertiary, secondary and specialist healthcare services to a quarter of the state’s population. We also deliver a number of specialist services statewide.

Read more about our hospitals and their services.

Rural opportunities

Rural rotation opportunities for interns include the following WA Country Health Service sites:

  • Albany Health Campus (external site)
  • Broome Health Campus (external site)
  • Northam Health Service (external site).

Working conditions

Working with SMHS offers you job security, modern and comprehensive health services and rewarding employment opportunities in a work environment which understands the need for work-life balance.

Learn about salaries, entitlements and other industrial provisions for medical practitioners working in the WA health system in the WA Health System – Medical Practitioners – AMA Industrial Agreement 2024 (PDF 1MB)

Benefits for SMHS employees can vary based on your employment contract, and providers’ terms and conditions, but can include:

  • competitive salary and employer contributed 11 per cent superannuation
  • salary packaging
  • flexible work practices
  • advancement and acting opportunities
  • employee assistance programs (counselling for you and your family)
  • discounts through the social club at your site
  • phased retirement options and flexible leave options.

Read more about employee benefits.

Why not make the move to WA?

If you’re located in other parts of Australia or overseas, you’re encouraged to follow in the footsteps of many of our medical officers who have decided to make Western Australia (WA) their home.

Western Australia is a diverse, inclusive and modern society, and moving to WA can be a great choice for your career and your family.

Applying for a SMHS intern position

In WA, all interns are employed through an annual centralised WA intern application process, coordinated by the accrediting body for intern positions, the Postgraduate Medical Council of Western Australia (PMCWA) (external site).

Applications typically open early May and close early June for the following year's intake.

Find more information on when and how to apply (external site).

More information

If you’re seeking information or have a query regarding employment with us as an intern, please contact the SMHS Doctor Support Unit by:

  • phoning +61 8 6152 3634
  • emailing Doctor Support Unit.

To request this content in a Word document please email us.

Last Updated: 18/12/2025
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Footer menu

  • wa.gov.au
  • Copyright
  • Disclaimer
  • Privacy
  • Sitemap
  • Contact Us

Brought to you by the Department of Health, Western Australia

© Government of Western Australia 2018 to