Earlier this week, we reported on an AHPRA press release announcing a “surge” in the number of overseas doctors coming to Australia as a result of an unprecedented bureaucratic brainwave.

It was the decision last year to ditch the “in-person” identity check, a pantomime demanding a doctor travels say from their home in Mumbai or London to the shores of Australia to show their face to a stranger to prove they are who they said they are, before returning home and waiting to discover if their application has been a success.

AHPRA says some 5717 IMGs came over during the last financial year, after the in person check was abandoned in December, an increase of 1205 on the year before.

But how bonkers was the in-person check bureaucracy? The short answer is very.