Hi, when the class splits between Townsville and cairns how is this decided? What are the advantages/disadvantages between the two locations?
Thanks
The class splits into Cairns/Townsville for 4th year and then further splits the Townsville group for fifth year into either Townsville, Cairns, Darwin or Mackay. Cairns students can apply to go to Mackay or Darwin but are guarenteed a spot in Cairns if they want to keep it, while Townsville students have to go into the ballot. For a Townsville student to come to Cairns they have to actively find a student to swap with.
Allocations work the same way as any allocations throughout the medical school - there is a form online where you submit your preference and you are able to see the number of people who have submitted which preferences (i.e. 70 Cairns, 120 Townsville). If one of the sites is oversubscribed (i.e. too many applicants) then people are randomly selected from that site allocation and balloted to the undersubscribed sites.
Talking in a non-biased way about advantages/disadvantages specifically is hard as I have only ever studied in Cairns. For me when I made the decision it was because I much preferred to live in Cairns than Townsville and thought that the hospital experience wouldn't be significantly different. In retrospect I certainly preferred living in Cairns, the smaller cohort made a good group and the hospital side of things is difficult to accurately comment on - I don't think I was disadvantaged or advantaged in any way.
It's a decision that you really don't have to think about until the start of 3rd year and for most people is influenced strongly by where their friends are all going. A lot of people put Cairns simply because they don't want to have to deal with a ballot for Darwin/Mackay/Townsville again in 5th year.