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The Realities of Studying and Practicing Medicine

L

Logic

Guest
Question/s:
What are my chances of getting into Monash as someone who's socially awkward and not all too passionate about medicine? (Re: below average interview)
Could you explain what you mean about not too passionate about medicine? Are you unsure of whether to pursue it?
 
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ChiangKS

Lurker
Could you explain what you mean about not too passionate about medicine? Are you unsure of whether to pursue it?
Yeah I guess haha. Doesn't sound too appealing to me but a job's a job. It's a safe choice - I don't want to pursue my passion and then realise it isn't as good as I thought it would be. Then I'd be stuck in a job I don't like with bad pay.
 
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DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Yeah I guess haha. Doesn't sound too appealing to me but a job's a job. It's a safe choice - I don't want to pursue my passion and then realise it isn't as good as I thought it would be. Then I'd be stuck in a job I don't like with bad pay.

Your results pretty much guarantee you a place at UTAS (no interview so the socially awkward and lacking passion parts are irrelevant). BUT... they’re only made irrelevant for a Med place offer, they are definitely NOT irrelevant for whether you should pursue Med as a career option.

That said, it’s entirely reasonable to not know what you really want to do at the end of year 12, and if you get into Med and want to give it a try above other things that you’re also not sure about, that’s perfectly legitimate. You may find you love it, you may find it’s really not for you, neither of those outcomes is the end of the world, and other options will remain open to you should you change your mind at some point.

People may point out the difficulties with Med training positions and things like that (relating to your “a job’s a job” comment), but to be honest, there is some degree of uncertainty and lots of competition in pretty much all professions so Med it not particularly unique in that sense.

Best of luck with your decision making and congrats on your great results.
 

ChiangKS

Lurker
Your results pretty much guarantee you a place at UTAS (no interview so the socially awkward and lacking passion parts are irrelevant). BUT... they’re only made irrelevant for a Med place offer, they are definitely NOT irrelevant for whether you should pursue Med as a career option.

That said, it’s entirely reasonable to not know what you really want to do at the end of year 12, and if you get into Med and want to give it a try above other things that you’re also not sure about, that’s perfectly legitimate. You may find you love it, you may find it’s really not for you, neither of those outcomes is the end of the world, and other options will remain open to you should you change your mind at some point.

People may point out the difficulties with Med training positions and things like that (relating to your “a job’s a job” comment), but to be honest, there is some degree of uncertainty and lots of competition in pretty much all professions so Med it not particularly unique in that sense.

Best of luck with your decision making and congrats on your great results.

Oh dear, I thought with med you were pretty much guaranteed a well-paying job? Like once your uni gets you a placement isn't it a pretty easy path to being a GP at least? Am I mistaken? TBH I don't know as much about this as I should...

Thanks for the tip about UTAS. I'd rather not move interstate though.
 
L

Logic

Guest
Oh dear, I thought with med you were pretty much guaranteed a well-paying job? Like once your uni gets you a placement isn't it a pretty easy path to being a GP at least? Am I mistaken?

Thanks for the tip about UTAS. I'd rather not move interstate though.
GP is oversubscribed in terms of the number of people attempting to specialise in it. It is far from easy.
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Oh dear, I thought with med you were pretty much guaranteed a well-paying job? Like once your uni gets you a placement isn't it a pretty easy path to being a GP at least? Am I mistaken?

Thanks for the tip about UTAS. I'd rather not move interstate though.

Internships in Vic are interview based, for starters.

Also, pretty much nothing, employment-wise, is ever guaranteed. And not much (I’d say nothing, but YMMV) in Med is “easy”.
 

ChiangKS

Lurker
Internships in Vic are interview based, for starters.

Also, pretty much nothing, employment-wise, is ever guaranteed. And not much (I’d say nothing, but YMMV) in Med is “easy”.

Oh hell. Internships aren't as I thought they were. Edit: Wait, but according to the AMA in 2016, only 40 students missed out on an internship, and it appears that most of them, if not all, were international students? It seems to logically follow that securing an internship isn't that difficult...?

I meant *guaranteed* in the sense that it's closest to guaranteed you can get with a profession. Is med also heavily reliant on networking? Or can you get by with being a nice person with good grades?
 
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ChiangKS

Lurker
GP is oversubscribed in terms of the number of people attempting to specialise in it. It is far from easy.
Med is looking less attractive by the second, which is rather depressing considering the amount of time I sunk into UMAT when I could've been working towards a 99.90.
 

A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
Oh hell. Internships aren't as I thought they were.
I meant *guaranteed* in the sense that it's closest to guaranteed you can get with a profession. Is med also heavily reliant on networking? Or can you get by with being a nice person with good grades?

Internships for CSP students including in Vic are still guaranteed. I believe the interview + their z-scores are to determine whether they get their choice hospital/location.
 

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ChiangKS

Lurker
Internships for CSP students including in Vic are still guaranteed. I believe the interview + their z-scores are to determine whether they get their choice hospital/location.

Oh thank god haha. Does z-score refer to your GPA?
 

A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
Oh thank god haha. Does z-score refer to your GPA?

pi / Perplex can answer this better than I. It seems the reason they use z-score instead of straight GPA is because they get grads from different schools (Monash, UoM, Deakin) and it's not accurate to compare their GPAs directly against one another.

In terms of employment we don't see any doctors in Centrelink queues yet. Even if there's no room to become GP there are still jobs in hospitals for them, albeit pretty shit jobs. But relatively speaking doctors are still better off than many unemployed lawyers accountants engineers pharmacists...
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
Oh hell. Internships aren't as I thought they were. Edit: Wait, but according to the AMA in 2016, only 40 students missed out on an internship, and it appears that most of them, if not all, were international students? It seems to logically follow that securing an internship isn't that difficult...?

I meant *guaranteed* in the sense that it's closest to guaranteed you can get with a profession. Is med also heavily reliant on networking? Or can you get by with being a nice person with good grades?

Nah, of the health-based 'professions' Med would be one of the least guaranteed simply because you need to do the intern year in order to be fully registered and there are some barriers to this (Pharmacy would probably be similar? I know people who've missed out on pharmacy internships over the years). Psychology, for example, has plenty of barriers to get into it in the first place, but once you're in, you're guaranteed a job at the end because, if worse comes to worst, once you graduate you can register and you can be a private practitioner (not ideal as a new grad, but doable) and open your own business, the intern year isn't compulsory (only if you want to specialise, and even then, it doesn't stop you from working).

As for what happened in 2016, you're looking at... 2023/24/25 depending on the uni you get into. It's difficult to say what things will look like then. Could be better, could be the same, could be worse, who knows. It's not worth panicking about, and all career pathways have their pros and cons, but it's not necessarily something to be dismissive of, either.

I have no idea about how necessary networking is, generally, but I'm halfway through first year and have already used networking to secure myself an awesome placement opportunity.
 

ChiangKS

Lurker
Nah, of the health-based 'professions' Med would be one of the least guaranteed simply because you need to do the intern year in order to be fully registered and there are some barriers to this (Pharmacy would probably be similar? I know people who've missed out on pharmacy internships over the years). Psychology, for example, has plenty of barriers to get into it in the first place, but once you're in, you're guaranteed a job at the end because, if worse comes to worst, once you graduate you can register and you can be a private practitioner (not ideal as a new grad, but doable) and open your own business, the intern year isn't compulsory (only if you want to specialise, and even then, it doesn't stop you from working).

As for what happened in 2016, you're looking at... 2023/24/25 depending on the uni you get into. It's difficult to say what things will look like then. Could be better, could be the same, could be worse, who knows. It's not worth panicking about, and all career pathways have their pros and cons, but it's not necessarily something to be dismissive of, either.

I have no idea about how necessary networking is, generally, but I'm halfway through first year and have already used networking to secure myself an awesome placement opportunity.

This reality check is giving me crippling depression lmao. And here I am in this thread instead of cramming for my exam tomorrow. I make good life decisions. I don't know what I'd do if I graduate with an MD I don't even want and no cushy job.
 

DrDrLMG!

Resident Medical Officer
Administrator
This reality check is giving me crippling depression lmao. And here I am in this thread instead of cramming for my exam tomorrow. I make good life decisions. I don't know what I'd do if I graduate with an MD I don't even want and no cushy job.

Can absolutely guarantee you that the 'cushy' Med jobs (if they even really exist) don't come until you've worked the really hard, stressful, opposite of cushy years at the start! There's zero chance you'll graduate straight into one*.

* Mana, hpfanfiction please correct me if my impression is wrong here!

ETA: And I am the worst person to be offering advice around not wasting time at MSO :D, but if you have an exam tomorrow then... yikes! Haha! Good luck!
 

Mana

there are no stupid questions, only people
Administrator
Yeah, the cushy jobs are impossible to get into in medicine in general. If you want cushy, medicine isn't for you.
 

hpfanfiction

Paediatric Healer at St. Mungo's Hospital
Emeritus Staff
Can absolutely guarantee you that the 'cushy' Med jobs (if they even really exist) don't come until you've worked the really hard, stressful, opposite of cushy years at the start! There's zero chance you'll graduate straight into one*.

* Mana, hpfanfiction please correct me if my impression is wrong here!

ETA: And I am the worst person to be offering advice around not wasting time at MSO :D, but if you have an exam tomorrow then... yikes! Haha! Good luck!
Yep. And even thinking longer term - many of the "cushy" specialities are extremely competitive and require extra hard work/achievements/many years working on CVs/courses/requirements/references outside of work (on top of everyday hard work/stress from work itself) to get into training. And just because the job as a consultant might be perceived as "cushy" (often it isn't), doesn't mean the process to get into training, or the training itself is.
 

A1

Rookie Doc
Moderator
I don't know what I'd do if I graduate with an MD I don't even want and no cushy job.

We are in med for med jobs, not cushy med jobs. For cushy jobs you need to have rich and kind parents who give you a non-executive CEO job in the family business :D
 

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ChiangKS

Lurker
Can absolutely guarantee you that the 'cushy' Med jobs (if they even really exist) don't come until you've worked the really hard, stressful, opposite of cushy years at the start! There's zero chance you'll graduate straight into one*.

* Mana, hpfanfiction please correct me if my impression is wrong here!

ETA: And I am the worst person to be offering advice around not wasting time at MSO :D, but if you have an exam tomorrow then... yikes! Haha! Good luck!

Haha thank you.

Dear me, I'm really too tired even with high school. I can deal with a few (hopefully?) years of stress though as long as there's something worthwhile at the end.
 

ChiangKS

Lurker
Yep. And even thinking longer term - many of the "cushy" specialities are extremely competitive and require extra hard work/achievements/many years working on CVs/courses/requirements/references outside of work (on top of everyday hard work/stress from work itself) to get into training. And just because the job as a consultant might be perceived as "cushy" (often it isn't), doesn't mean the process to get into training, or the training itself is.

Yeah, the cushy jobs are impossible to get into in medicine in general. If you want cushy, medicine isn't for you.

Okay, by "cushy" I didn't really mean sitting around sipping martinis haha. More job stability + good money + reasonable hours + not overly stressful compared to engineering/APS (Australian Public Service)/academia jobs.
 

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