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Otago Waikato Medical School

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
*Terrible news! (If it happens. So far as I know, this is still just a proposal - unless Stephen Joyce has already been daft enough to approve it)

Take a look around this site for information on the medical graduate 'tsunami' in Australia. The same is already happening here, we're just a few years behind. Opening up another medical school and pumping out more graduates is a shocking move when DHBs are already having difficulty placing all the graduates we have now.

There's no point in pumping out more medical graduates than you can hire and subsequently train.

This may seem like a great idea to prospective medical school applicants, who naturally approve of anything that might better their own chances of getting in. You won't feel that way when you and your classmates find yourselves worrying about whether you'll have a job at the end of it.
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Auckland's medical school class sizes have almost doubled in the last 5 or so years, so yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they're shipping students out to further afield hospitals.

But from what I've read of the Waikato proposal, they want most of their training to be done in community, GP and rural hospital settings. Ostensibly that has something to do with 'making more rural doctors' (whether it would is another story - as is how good an idea this is for producing 'good' house officers, considering they largely exist to do clerical hospital jobs), but I'm willing to bet it was a way of getting around any existing Auckland turf claims.
 

DrTrump

Member
Medical graduates are always in demand. Regardless, competition will always exist, we should open a third maybe fourth medical school and restrict number of doctors from overseas. Only hire specialists not junior doctors from abroad.

But I wish they could have chosen a bigger university to host the medical school. Victoria or Canterbury university and maybe open a dental school.

Hi,

Could you elaborate on why you believe that this is a good idea?
There's a shortage of medical doctors in the world. If there isn't one in NZ, the world will always benefit from more doctors. If you don't believe me ask WHO or MSF
 
Last edited by a moderator:

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Medical graduates are not 'always in demand'. The demand for medical graduates is set by DHBs/the government. If you increase med grad numbers without increasing the number of grads they can afford to hire, people miss out.

I happen to agree with your point that we should stop hiring so many international house officers, but Idk where you're getting this idea that opening a third (or fourth, as you suggest) medical school would just be completely fine.

Free market economics doesn't apply to medical graduate employment - if I need to explain why then I suggest you read up on what the definition of 'free market' is. You can't just randomly assume 'more competition is a good thing'.

As for 'the rest of the world needs more junior doctors'... medical graduates can't gallavant off to third world countries etc and practice autonomously until they're fully registered. You don't get full registration until after PGY1.

Also, please don't post three replies in a row. Put all of what you want to say in one post.
 

DrTrump

Member
Frootloop medical graduates who miss should do what other graduates in other fields do, find wherever you can find a job. Go rural, work for humanitarian organisations. As long as they are not pumping out like BA graduates, doctors are always in demand. I won't say this about any other profession.
 

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frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
You're missing the point - you can't just 'go rural'. If you don't do PGY1, you're not a registered doctor. So you've just wasted 6 years of your life and a couple of hundred thousand taxpayer dollars.

You keep saying 'doctors are always in demand'. I suspect this statement is driven by the chronic shortage of senior doctors. Fresh medical graduates can't fill that gap. So sure, senior docs are always in demand. Fresh grads? Not so much.
 

DrTrump

Member
Medical graduates are not 'always in demand'. The demand for medical graduates is set by DHBs/the government. If you increase med grad numbers without increasing the number of grads they can afford to hire, people miss out.

I happen to agree with your point that we should stop hiring so many international house officers, but Idk where you're getting this idea that opening a third (or fourth, as you suggest) medical school would just be completely fine.

Free market economics doesn't apply to medical graduate employment - if I need to explain why then I suggest you read up on what the definition of 'free market' is. You can't just randomly assume 'more competition is a good thing'.

As for 'the rest of the world needs more junior doctors'... medical graduates can't gallavant off to third world countries etc and practice autonomously until they're fully registered. You don't get full registration until after PGY1.

Also, please don't post three replies in a row. Put all of what you want to say in one post.
Reduce their salaries until they are
You're missing the point - you can't just 'go rural'. If you don't do PGY1, you're not a registered doctor. So you've just wasted 6 years of your life and a couple of hundred thousand taxpayer dollars.

You keep saying 'doctors are always in demand'. I suspect this statement is driven by the chronic shortage of senior doctors. Fresh medical graduates can't fill that gap. So sure, senior docs are always in demand. Fresh grads? Not so much.
They should work as low paid intern and assume comfortable salary once they are fully registered. Just like the pharmacy internship, that way hire more graduates. This may actually stop the junior doctors protests about burn out etc
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
How many different ways do I have to say 'if you can't get hired for PGY1, you can't get registered as a doctor'?

As for reducing their salaries... what? As I said before, you can't just apply high school economics perfect competition models to this. It's a massively regulated and entry-restricted market.
 

DrTrump

Member
Make those old farts retire then. Why are still in the job until they close to 80.
That's the problem, they should have a compulsory retirement by law. Let fresh folks get a chance.
 

sht

Member
Make those old farts retire then. Why are still in the job until they close to 80.
That's the problem, they should have a compulsory retirement by law. Let fresh folks get a chance.
So now you are firing "old" people to allow for your enthusiasm for a new med school in The Tron?
 

frootloop

Doctor
Moderator
Sigh. There aren't enough senior doctors. We don't want more of them to retire - if they retire, there are even fewer of them around to train juniors, so we can hire fewer juniors.
(Note: You could argue that some older consultants are sitting on jobs, stopping senior registrars from taking consultant roles, etc. But I'd argue the problem is that there aren't enough consultant jobs on offer in total)

You seem to be labouring under the assumption that senior and junior doctors are holding the same job: 'doctor'. That isn't the case.
 

Rob

House Officer
Emeritus Staff
Make those old farts retire then. Why are still in the job until they close to 80.
That's the problem, they should have a compulsory retirement by law. Let fresh folks get a chance.

Problem: not enough senior doctors. Solution: fire all the senior doctors.

I can get behind this logic.
 

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biom

Regular Member
Supreme Overlord of the Chatbox
Make those old farts retire then. Why are still in the job until they close to 80.
That's the problem, they should have a compulsory retirement by law. Let fresh folks get a chance.
@DrTrump
Has the above discussion about the need for experienced doctors and Hospital budgets being the limiting factor for the demand for junior doctors made sense? I didn't understand this until recently.

As a suggestion, if it doesn't make sense then ask some questions. People will be happy to explain.

ps.... elsewhere on the forum there is a member having a bit of a chuckle about your dump on BAs. It seems she has one... plus a masters... plus a PhD. oops.:facepalm:
 

DrTrump

Member
Sigh. There aren't enough senior doctors. We don't want more of them to retire - if they retire, there are even fewer of them around to train juniors, so we can hire fewer juniors.

You seem to be labouring under the assumption that senior and junior doctors are holding the same job: 'doctor'. That isn't the case.
Tat
@DrTrump
Has the above discussion about the need for experienced doctors and Hospital budgets being the limiting factor for the demand for junior doctors made sense? I didn't understand this until recently.

As a suggestion, if it doesn't make sense then ask some questions. People will be happy to explain.

ps.... elsewhere on the forum there is a member having a bit of a chuckle about your dump on BAs. It seems she has one... plus a masters... plus a PhD. oops.:facepalm:
Over qualified but not qualified for anything. Nice encapsulation of BA. Unfortunately I can't access the forum.
 

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