If you're on the journey to work or study in an English-speaking country, it’s important you select the test that’s best suited to your needs. While both IELTS and OET are valid, reputable and widely accepted, only OET is specifically designed for healthcare professionals like you. Here’s why OET is the better choice for healthcare:
OET covers healthcare topics, making it easier to study
IELTS Academic is designed to measure whether your language level is suitable for university or college study. Because of this, you could be tested on a wide range of topics – everything from coal mining to animal extinction, which are completely different fields to your previous healthcare studies. This means you must learn more vocabulary, making it harder to study.
OET is designed for healthcare professionals and tailored to 12 professions, including nursing and medicine. Every part of the test mirrors real-world tasks and scenarios you already encounter in your day-to-day work, making it familiar, relevant, and practical for studying and applying to your future career.
“When I took the OET Test, I found that the terminology and materials were things I was already communicating about in my daily work. There wasn’t anything that was unfamiliar – the substance of the test were things that I already knew, and deal with every day.” - May Parsons, a nurse from the Philippines now working in the UK.
Every part of OET's test content is about healthcare versus IELTS Academic tests' general content
Just like IELTS, OET covers four sections – Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. In OET Reading and Listening, the topics are of generic healthcare interest, so all professions do the same tests. OET Speaking and Writing are unique for each profession. So, if you’re a nurse, you will do the nursing tasks, and if you’re a doctor, your tasks will be related to medicine, and so on.
Here’s how OET compares to IELTS Academic on each sub-test:
- Listening sub-test: OET will assess you on healthcare-related audio examples, such as a discussion between a doctor and patient. IELTS will assess you on audio from academic scenarios, such as a university lecture.
- Reading sub-test: OET utilises healthcare-related texts such as point-of-care scenarios and workplace communications, whereas IELTS use long-form texts from various academic topics covering everything from recycling to astronomy.
- Writing sub-test: While sitting OET you'll need to write a letter based on case notes to another healthcare professional. If you sit IELTS you’ll be required to analyse and describe graphs, charts or process diagrams for various academic topics, and write an academic essay on a topic unrelated to healthcare.
- Speaking sub-test: OET assessment is based on role plays within healthcare settings that are specific to your profession, such as a conversation between a doctor and a patient. IELTS will require you to do speaking assessment with structured conversations on a wide range of academic subjects not related to healthcare.
OET is more relevant to your healthcare career
The vocabulary, role plays and scenarios in the OET Test reflect a real-life healthcare setting, so the English skills you learn will make it easier to communicate with patients, families and work colleagues, so you can succeed in your healthcare career. The content you cover in the OET Test can also help you prepare for other tests as part of your healthcare registration process such as the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) or NCLEX.
“The things that OET tests you on – how we communicate with patients, how we read information, exchange emails on patients, and write – we use these skills every day in our career.” Dr Henry Becerra, Colombian Doctor now working in the USA.
Go where you want to go: OET is accepted by more healthcare organisations globally
OET is trusted and recognised by more healthcare organisations around the world as the preferred test for healthcare professionals. This includes the NMC, GMC, AHPRA, ECFMG, CGFNS, and FMRAC.
Organisations like ECFMG, for international medical graduates (IMGs) looking to work in medicine in the United States, only accept OET; other English tests like IELTS are not accepted. Many countries including the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand also accept OET for Visa purposes.
To find out where OET can take you, explore all the organisations that accept OET globally.
"I took IELTS three or four times but couldn’t pass. The topics for the writing assessment were obscure things like art or drama, and not my field of expertise." - Sanjith Kumar, Indian nurse who passed OET and is now working in the UK.