Obstetrics and gynaecology, both halves in the same week.
The title here is senior medical officer, not consultant. One of the quicker registration routes, and a maternity system where midwives hold the routine care and refer in.
You are the specialist a midwife refers to.
You see the referred and complex cases, run clinics and theatre, and give the specialist advice the service relies on. Routine pregnancies sit with a Lead Maternity Carer, usually a midwife, who looks after the woman from booking until six weeks after the birth.
The LMC holds her own caseload and refers in when something falls outside a normal pregnancy. What changes is how a woman gets to you, and who looks after her in between.
How registration works →
Both halves of the specialty, in the same week.
Outside the tertiary centres, posts cover obstetrics and gynaecology together: labour ward, clinics, and elective and acute operating. You need to want that breadth, because there is no way to work around it.
The sub-specialties — maternal-fetal medicine, gynaecological oncology, urogynaecology and reproductive medicine — sit in a handful of tertiary centres. Everywhere else you carry a general list and build a special interest inside it.
How pay is set →
More choice of place than most specialties offer.
Almost every hospital with a birthing unit needs obstetricians and gynaecologists, so the posts are spread across the country. A tertiary centre gives you sub-specialty services, RANZCOG trainees to teach, and more colleagues to share the out-of-hours with. A regional unit gives you generalist practice, fewer births, a thinner rota, and the people making decisions two doors down.
You know the midwives, the anaesthetists and the theatre teams by name, and SMOs are expected on the labour ward rather than called to it. Most describe the working relationship as flatter than the one they left.
Explore the destination guides →
The essentials, in five minutes
Seven questions people ask before they decide. Open the ones that matter to you.
Can I work there?Yes, and yours is a quicker specialty
You register with the Medical Council of New Zealand in the vocational scope of obstetrics and gynaecology, which is on the fast-track list: a UK Fellowship or Membership held with a CCT (GMC or PMETB) or CCST (STA), or an Irish Membership or Fellowship with a CSCST, is processed in twenty published working days on a complete application. A FRANZCOG needs no assessment. Trained elsewhere and RANZCOG advises the Council.
How registration works →What could I earn?A published national scale
Senior medical officer pay is set by years since you attained specialist registration, the same wherever in the country you work — published, not haggled over. The ASMS MECA runs from about NZ$198,000 to NZ$282,000.
How pay is set →Where are the jobs?Every hospital with a birthing unit
Maternity and gynaecology services run in effectively every hospital with a birthing unit, so you have more choice than in most specialties. Tertiary centres for sub-specialty services and trainees; regional units for generalist work, lower birth numbers, a thinner rota and a much shorter distance to the decisions.
Where the posts are →What will the work be like?You’re the specialist a midwife refers to
The obstetrics and gynaecology will feel familiar; the system around them will not. Most women choose a Lead Maternity Carer — usually a midwife — who looks after them from booking until six weeks after the birth. You see the referred and complex cases, run clinics and theatre, and give the specialist advice the model relies on. It is a real change from a consultant-led service.
The work itself →Can I bring my family?Yes, most people do
Partners and children can usually join you on visas linked to yours, and partners can usually work. Schools, childcare and the family logistics are explained once, properly, in the family guide.
Family moves, explained →What will moving cost?Verification costs the most
Council fees, primary-source verification of your degree and specialist qualification, certificates of good standing from every authority you have registered with, visa fees for everyone moving, flights and shipping. Some employers contribute to relocation, some don’t — we get whatever is offered in writing.
The move, costed →How long could this take?Order beats speed
A consultant-level job offer is a listed prerequisite on the fast-track pathway, so the offer is not the last step. Certificates of good standing expire, and the Council’s window and Immigration New Zealand’s don’t match — so sequencing matters more than hurrying.
The journey, sequenced →Current opportunities
Roles we’re recruiting for right now. If none is quite right, register your interest and we’ll be in touch when something fits.
The detail, when you want it
Registration, pay, the work itself and life outside it. Everything is here, one section at a time.
At a glanceThe essentials, in twenty seconds
The maternity model is the thing to understand before the job title.
Check your registration pathway →See current opportunities →
Getting registeredYour specialty is one of the quicker ones
Reviewed August 2026 · checked against the Medical Council of New Zealand’s current published guidance
You register with the Medical Council of New Zealand in the vocational scope of obstetrics and gynaecology. The route is the same one every specialist follows; three details are specific to you.
Obstetrics and gynaecology is on the fast-track list. A UK Fellowship or Membership of the relevant Royal College, held together with a CCT issued by the GMC or PMETB or a CCST issued by the STA, sits on the Council’s approved list — as does an Irish Membership or Fellowship held with a CSCST. The Council publishes twenty working days for a complete application on that pathway.
A FRANZCOG needs no assessment. If you trained through RANZCOG, your fellowship is an approved Australasian qualification. No comparability exercise, and no college advice to wait on.
Trained elsewhere? RANZCOG advises the Council. Qualifications outside those lists are assessed against the FRANZCOG standard, on the college’s own process. Allow considerably longer, and start the college paperwork early rather than after you apply.
What the Council will want to see, whichever route you are on:
- A consultant-level job offer — a listed prerequisite on the fast-track pathway
- Primary-source verification of your medical degree and specialist qualification
- Evidence of at least 24 months’ recent practice in the specialty
- A certificate of good standing from every authority you have registered with
- Identity, criminal-history and English-language evidence where required
The order matters more than the speed. Primary-source verification through EPIC or MyIntealth is almost always the slowest step, so it starts first and runs while everything else happens. The job offer comes next, because on the fast-track pathway it is a prerequisite rather than a formality. The Council application is built around both, and the visa runs alongside it rather than after it.
Which vocational pathway fits you
Almost every obstetrician and gynaecologist we move arrives by one of four MCNZ vocational pathways. They differ in what you already hold, not in how good a doctor you are. The one that applies to you decides your timeline more than anything else in the move.
A UK or Irish award, with a CCT, CCST or CSCST
Obstetrics and gynaecology is one of the nine areas of medicine on the Council’s fast-track list. A UK Fellowship or Membership with a CCT or CCST, or an Irish award with a CSCST, sits on the approved list. A FRANZCOG doesn’t need this route — it is already an approved Australasian qualification, so it goes to VOC1 or VOC2.
FRANZCOG, and already registered here
An approved Australasian postgraduate qualification plus general registration in New Zealand. Nothing is assessed for comparability, because your fellowship already is the standard.
FRANZCOG, but no NZ general registration
The same approved Australasian qualification, without general registration here yet. Most RANZCOG fellows moving from Australia for the first time come this way.
Trained outside New Zealand and Australia
Your training and experience are assessed on their merits, with RANZCOG advising the Council against the FRANZCOG standard. This is the route where early college paperwork earns you the most time.
What the fast track asks of you
VOC4 has prerequisites the other routes don’t, and one of them surprises people: a job offer in Aotearoa New Zealand at consultant or specialist level is a listed prerequisite, so the role comes first and the application is built around it. You’ll also need 24 months’ practice in obstetrics and gynaecology at 0.5 FTE or more within the past five years — 12 of them in the 18 months before you apply — in a health system the Council treats as comparable, three verified references, and your qualifications already moving through EPIC / MyIntealth. Verification is usually the slowest single step, which is why we start it before anything else.
And what follows approval
VOC3 and VOC4 both lead to provisional vocational registration rather than the full scope. You practise under a named supervisor in an approved position — supervision is a condition of the provisional scope, not a judgement on you. If your job, location or supervisor changes during it, you apply to vary your scope at least 20 days ahead.
Two things worth diarising. Your registration meeting happens in New Zealand, within two weeks of your intended start date, and you cannot practise until it is done and your practising certificate issued — allow about three days after the meeting for that. And moving to the full vocational scope is an application you make once the Council’s requirements are met, not something that arrives on a date.
Where this comes from. The pathway definitions, prerequisites, processing times and approved areas of medicine above are the Medical Council of New Zealand’s own published guidance, read in August 2026 against its approved-qualifications list dated 13 August 2026. Times are for complete applications; an incomplete one restarts the clock, and the list is added to periodically. Check your own case against the Council before you make a decision on it.
Abortion care sits in health law here. Since the law changed in 2020 it is regulated as health care rather than under the criminal law, and provision is part of ordinary service planning. Conscientious objection provisions exist and services differ, so this is a question worth asking of a specific post rather than of the country.
PayA published scale, the same wherever you work
A published scale, set by years since specialist registration and the same wherever in the country you work. On-call and allowances sit on top. We will tell you which step you would land on.
A stepped national scale by years since specialist registration, the same wherever in the country you work. Which agreement sets this
Penal rates and an availability allowance for on-call, plus a funded CME allowance and dedicated CME leave.
Private gynaecology is available in the larger centres alongside a public post. Private obstetrics is a smaller market here than in many systems, because the public model already delivers continuity.
A work visa first, then the residence pathways. Which one applies depends on the role and your circumstances, and we sequence it with you. How visas work
How we verify pay. Every figure we print is read off the collective agreement that covers the role, with the agreement named and its term stated. Where a scale is published in a form we cannot check, we say so and print no band rather than estimate one.
Relocation support varies by employer and role. Where it is available, we confirm exactly what is included before you make any decisions.
Private gynaecology operates in the larger centres and sits comfortably alongside a public post. Private obstetrics is a smaller market than in many systems, largely because the public model already delivers the continuity that private care is often bought for.
Life in New ZealandLong nights on the labour ward, and a short drive home.
A twenty-minute commute, and the water or the hills at the end of it.
Obstetrics is intense wherever you do it, and nobody here will pretend otherwise. What differs is what happens either side of the shift: the commute is short, the department is small enough that cover is a conversation, and the rota is built around a whole career rather than a decade of it.
The other half is what the time off is worth. Most hospitals sit within half an hour of open water, a river or a mountain, so a weekend does not need planning weeks ahead. For families that is usually the argument that settles it.
The nights are the same everywhere. The drive home is not.
The maternity model is the thing people misjudge, in both directions. Some arrive expecting to lose authority and find the opposite; others expect a doctor-led service and are unsettled in their first month. I would rather you understood it properly before we start.
Practically, I ask for two numbers before anyone gets attached to a hospital: the annual birth numbers and the on-call frequency. Together they tell you more about the job than the job description does.
SophieFounder, Ethicare Resourcing
What we can’t promise
Three things we won’t guarantee, and what we do instead.
Timelines that aren’t ours to give
Registration sits with the Medical Council and visas with Immigration New Zealand. We give you the likely range, keep your file complete and moving, and chase what can be chased — but we will not quote a faster number to win you over.
A specific job in a specific city
Obstetrics and gynaecology recruits widely, but the exact combination of sub-specialty interest, unit size and town you have in mind may not be open this year. If your heart is set on one place, we will tell you how long that wait could be — before you resign anything, not after.
That the move is right for you
Some moves shouldn’t happen. If the scope, the pay maths or the family logistics don’t stack up, we will say so plainly.
Frequently asked
How does the Lead Maternity Carer model change my job?
Most women here choose a Lead Maternity Carer, usually a midwife, who looks after them from booking through to six weeks after the birth. You see referred and complex cases, run clinics and theatre, and provide the specialist advice the model depends on.
An LMC does not have to be a midwife. Ministry of Health guidance says the role can be held by a midwife, a GP or a specialist obstetrician — though obstetrician-led LMC care is a private service and available in limited areas only. Most LMCs are midwives.
Your clinical authority is unchanged. What changes is how a woman reaches you, and who holds her care between the times she does. Some take to that quickly; others find it a real adjustment, and it is worth knowing which you are before you accept a post.
Will I keep my sub-specialty work?
Maternal-fetal medicine, gynaecological oncology, urogynaecology and reproductive medicine concentrate in the tertiary centres. Elsewhere you would carry a generalist obstetric and gynaecological list with a special interest attached.
Tell us which matters more — it decides which hospitals we put in front of you.
What is on-call like in a regional unit?
Thinner than you may be used to. Fewer SMOs share the rota, you are called more often, and you are the one who drives in.
Against that, birth numbers are lower and the theatre team knows you. Paid at penalty rates plus an availability allowance — and we give you the actual rota and the annual birth numbers before you decide.
Is there private practice?
Private gynaecology is available in the larger centres and sits comfortably alongside a public post, provided it does not cut across your contracted commitments.
Private obstetrics is a smaller market here than in many systems, largely because the public model already delivers continuity of care. Worth calibrating your expectations on that before you plan around it.
What do you want your obstetric week to look like?
Relocating to a new country can feel overwhelming at times, and you won’t be doing it on your own. Find your registration pathway in two minutes, then send us your CV and we’ll take it from there.