MDC · GCPS · Ghana
Your route to practising medicine in Ghana, step by step
Licensing exams, registration, housemanship and specialist residency rules are spread across PDFs, portals and notices. This guide puts them in one place, in the order you'll need them, with a citation to the official source for every step.
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Two bodies, two separate processes
- 1
Medical and Dental Council (MDC)
Your licence to practise: registration exams, provisional and permanent registration, housemanship.
- 2
Ghana College of Physicians and Surgeons (GCPS)
Specialist training: Primaries, Membership residency, Fellowship. GCPS requires MDC registration first.
Where would you like to start?
Find my pathway
Answer a few questions about where you trained and what you want to do. You get your steps in order, each linked to the rule it comes from.
Start the pathway finder →Browse FAQs
Clear answers to the questions doctors ask most about MDC exams, registration, housemanship and GCPS residency.
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Ask a follow-up question in your own words. Answers come only from official documents, with citations, and say plainly what is unknown.
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Trained in Ghana
Final-year students and new graduates: the Stage 1 deadline, provisional registration, housemanship and permanent registration.
Trained abroad
Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians with foreign degrees: the 6-month clinical attachment, documents, both exam stages and permits.
Heading to residency
Practising doctors: how MDC registration differs from GCPS Membership, Primaries, interviews and Fellowship entry.
How we tell you what's certain
Every step and answer is labelled with one of four statuses, and links to the exact passage it relies on. When the official documents are silent or contradict each other, we say so rather than guess.
Sources last checked: 2026-10-14. See all sources
- Confirmed
- Stated directly in a current official document.
- Conditional
- Depends on your circumstances, or may change (e.g. undated fees, advertised dates).
- Confirm with regulator
- The official documents we've reviewed are silent, unclear or in conflict on this.
- Outdated
- Based on a document that has since been superseded.