Australia and the United States have an historic and enduring alliance of common values and aspirations, born of correspondent origins. Both Australia and the U.S. began as British colonies. Both became democracies. In both countries one of the prevailing attitudes can be said to be that of the primacy of equal opportunity. Ethnic and cultural diversity are promoted and embraced in both countries.

In the realm of academics, the U.S. and Australia have a long and many branched history of interconnectedness, enthusiastic collaboration, and mutual interest and support. As early as 1949 Australia and the U.S. signed a bi-national treaty that led to the creation of the United States Educational Foundation in Australia (USEFA), today known as the Australian-American Fulbright Commission. The mission of this organization, which is funded equally by the two governments, is “to further mutual understanding between the people of Australia and the United States through educational and cultural exchange.” Since its founding, almost 5,000 Australians and Americans have studied in each others' countries as Fulbright scholars. Further, each year the number of Americans attending school in Australia, and of Australians studying in the U.S., numbers in the thousands. The American Australian Foundation, also created in the 1940s, was similarly founded to promote and facilitate educational collaboration between the U.S. and Australia, providing generous fellowships for students from one of the two nations to study in the other. In 2007 the Australian American Foundation granted over one million dollars to forty Education Fellows.

The Australian American Education Alliance exists to promote educational opportunities between the two countries in a scheme under which qualifications gained will have the same recognition in both countries. In fact, Australian degrees are considered comparable to degrees earned in the U.S. by accrediting organizations of many types. In 1989, under the Washington Accord, the accrediting bodies of engineering programs agreed to recognize each other as equivalent.

Australia has long had in place systems to ensure that the education American, as well as all international students, receive is of a consistently superior quality. The Australia Qualifications Framework (AQF), the Australian Education Services for Overseas Students Act of 2000 (ESOS), and the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students (CRICOS), were all created and are maintained by the Australian government to require and ensure that their educational institutions meet nationally and internationally consistent standards.

The University of Queensland School of Medicine and Ochsner Clinic Foundation Program stands as a shining example of the historic academic alliance between Australia and the U.S.. Both institutions are of internationally recognized excellence, emphasizing the highest standards of quality in medical education. The University of Queensland is one of Australia's most prestigious institutions, a member of the prestigious Group of Eight (GO8) and of the international network Universitas 21; the School of Medicine is home to the 1996 Nobel Prize winner in medicine.

The Ochsner Clinic Foundation, founded to further excellence in the care of patients, in medical education and research, is one of the U.S.'s largest independent graduate medical education programs, Ochsner's stated mission is to provide the highest quality health care as well as a warm and inviting atmosphere. The physicians at Ochsner are deeply committed not only to caring for their patients but also to mentoring their students.

The Program is the logical outcome of the long-standing academic alliance between Australia and the U.S. A medical school of academic rigor and excellence, on both continents.