Only vocationally registered General Practitioners will be included on the Specialist Register of the new national registration scheme. The decision was proposed by the Medical Board of Australia and was received well by the AMA, which will take effect from 1 July 2010.

AMA President, Dr Andrew Pesce said, "The Board has made the right decision. The Board has recognised the high quality patient care that is being provided by over 11,000 hard working vocationally registered GPs across the country that, for historical reasons, does not hold the Fellowship qualifications".

It would have been really unfair not to identify the skills of vocationally registered doctors and it might have led to creation of two classes of doctors.

Dr. Pesce also added that Medical Board of Australia recognizes the importance of the RACGP and ACRRM fellowships and firmly believes these to be the very yardsticks for identification of Specialist General Practitioners in the years to come.