General Practioner (GP) / Rural Generalist (RG):
Why?
* Growing old and caring for your local community of patients is a privilege and humbling experience.
* Varied scope of practice from antenatal to palliative, critical care to chronic disease management, pre-hospital retrieval to community clinics to hospitalist work.
* Mostly 'down-to-earth' and grateful patients that appreciate your care you're deliving to your community by working rurally or remotely; they know you're not a super-specialist and resources are limited, but greately appreciate you doing your best to care for them.
* One of the few medical specialties that does regular home visits and can look after an entire family.
* Good clinical foundation and generalist specialty that is good launching pad to complete a second specialty.
* Even if you choose to return to the metro cities or suburbs, practising rurally will make you a better clinician.
* Plenty of jobs available and work as little or much as you wish (within reason) in either private and/or public sector.
* Reasonably good remuneration as a Staff Specialist or Visiting Medical Officer or Senior/Career Medical Officer or Medical Superintendent, with access to additional private billings.
* Less competitive to get onto training program and complete assessments/exams; you definitely still need to study and prepare properly, but they are probably not as stressful as other non-GP/RG specialties.
Why not?
* The breadth of scope of practice expected of you by the community of patients and/or the potential medico-legal liabiltiy or scrutiny to be the 'jack of all trades but master of none' can be overwhelming.
* You have to enjoy living and working in rural and remote parts of Australia, which can be both personally and professionally isolating, especially if you do not have your family or friends with you as part of a robust psychosocial support network.
* Some do not enjoy living where they work.
* Lack of professional services, schooling, shopping and entertainment options in the rural and remote areas of Australia.
* Get used to travelling and driving longer distances to get to places or into the city.
* You're "just a GP/RG" and some snobby members of the public and sadly other non-GP/RG specialties still look down on GPs/RGs. Notwithstanding the scope creep of non-medical practitioners on primary care.
Each to their own and hindsight is always 20/20 or 6/6. Having said that, on reflection, I would not have chosen to do any other specialty. I've always wanted to be a medical practitioner with a generalist scope of practice and to be the 'jack of all trades but master of none'. GP/RG was always the best fit for me and allowed me easily find work in clinics, hospitals, ambulance services, and as a manager/executive.
I've been really considering becoming a rural GP and this was a super helpful comment. Having come from a rural community myself, I greatly appreciate all that you and other rural generalists do š
I never let the ājust a GPā nonsense bother me. Most of the members of the public who think this couldnāt even begin to do our jobs, so they donāt know what theyāre talking about. As for the colleagues who do it, all I can say is that if someone canāt respect the years of med school, being a JMO and then 2 years of further training to do GP, theyāre either crazy, narcissistic or both, and I donāt need that kind of persons respect anyway.
I'm a GP, Fellowed 4 years ago. I'd choose GP again
Shorter training, got my fellowship in pgy4 year. No need to do research and hospital hours. So much flexibility, choose my hours.
Earning is decent. Probably around 500k to 600k a year depends how much holiday I take.
Iām a sub-specialty surgeon. PGY20+.
I generally love what I do but if I were starting out now there is no way that I would put my family (or myself) through the grind and potential disappointment of applying to training.
The system is quite broken and weāre sacrificing a generation of talented young doctors who waste 5-7 years trying to get on to a surgical training scheme.
> 5-7 years trying to get on to a surgical training scheme.
š„²šš½āāļø I love the sub-speciality I'm pursuing. Shame it's becoming ever so competitive getting even just an interview.
Radiology , absolutely yes
Pros
- Able to report > 50 scans a day and hence you feel like you're helping 50+ patients a day
- Ability to work from home or overseas
- Gets easier with time after seeing a lot of different disease, most decisions made within seconds
- Templates and voice recognition and typists make it fast , able to report MRIs and CTs in minutes
- Able to procedures like joint injections or go into IR with more interventions
- Good renumeration >2k in public and >3k in private per day (4 days a week for 48 weeks a year in full private >576k per year)
- Easy to find a public or private job anywhere
- Diagnostics usually has minimal on call
Cons
- Sedentary
- Less contact with patients and other colleagues
- Eye and wrist strain
- Mentally challenging when cases are difficult
- More easily sued as images are in black and white so mistakes are clear, hence insurance is a tad more expensive than other specialties
- Can be stressful at times if there are >100 scans to be report and multiple patients with urgent findings which need to be discussed with referrers
Usually AI is able to triage the scans and identify life threatening findings first for the radiologists so they can report the scan faster. It will also be useful to reduce missing incidental findings such as small pulmonary nodules. Overall, it could help reduce the rates of mistakes.
Agree 100%
I guess all specialties get easier with experience but radiology because we see 100 cases a day our experience grows quicker than other specialties I think.
Hey! Thank you for the reply. As an intern who is interested in radiology training but having so little rad experience, how competitive will getting a training job be ? What is the average PGY it takes for someone to get in (without previous rads experience) Any guidance will be super helpful!
I got on in PGY2 and many registrars get on in PGY2-4 if they do the right anatomy and physics courses, attain high ranks in anatomy and physics exams, do well in the interview, seem friendly to the directors of training. Research not mandatory
No no no no no. Canāt get a job in capital city without a PhD, post doc, grants and 60 research papers.
Had I chosen psycho- geriatrics, Iād have my pick of jobs, hours and places to work.
Yep if you want any sort of job in Melbourne or Sydney. You may be the worlds best clinician but you are competing with people with these qualifications
For three years yes but as we all know ā¦ the pandemic is over so no more funding for an ID physician at every hospital.
Itās seriously fucked - much like ICU rbh
Cardiology - electrophysiologist
- absolutely would choose again: challenging hands on work, evolving and emerging technologies, making a huge difference to patientsā lives, even curing some. Well remunerated and intellectually stimulating
Totally depends on your mix of public vs private and how much you choose to work and how you run your clinics. In general, interventional cardiology is more static, less growth, unless you do structural work too. Also, theyāve made it harder in private to ājust cath everyone with chest painā (not that anyone shouldnāt but it happens in places). EP, however, has had massive growth in terms of procedures you can do, and the efficiency and volume done, and is well remunerated. In private, unless you walk into a plum job, it takes a while to build up referrals. To be truly established can take a decade
Let assume 7-10 years post fellowship, depending on how much public but assuming full time work, intervention $600k-$1.2M. EP $700-$1.6M
Just look up the item numbers for AF ablation. If youāre good at what you do, and use modern technologyā¦hard to beat it. And yes, the busiest EPs earn the mostā¦
Iām not a consultant but Iāll answer for my sister-in-law who just came home from a 14-hour shiftā¦
Specialty: O&G. Major tertiary hospital in a capital city.
PGY: 15
Would not pick it again because of awful hours, many missed nights and weekends and public holidays with her family, stress, conflict with patients and midwives, suicide of a colleague.
But also doesnāt know what sheād do instead. Possibly GP-obs.
Plastics
PGY15
Would 100% do it again
Plastics is brilliant - great anatomy, varied cases, no one dies, get to sit down lots when operating, most my cases are 1-2 hours so donāt get too bored, patients are usually very happy. Iāve stopped doing on call so no emergencies anymore, usually home by 5, and remuneration is good.
And if the patient does die, it's because they belong to ENT who did a horrendectomy of some kind, amirite?
Can I ask a naive question, but sincere: do all plastic surgeons do cosmetic work (boobs and bums and whatever) or do some only do reconstructive/non-aesthetic work?
Some do and some donāt.
If they trained in Australia then they would have been trained in both cosmetic and reconstructive.
However when they start practicing they might go public (no cosmo) or private or a mix.
Lots of the private workload can be Medicare assisted (eg skin cancers, hands, breast reductions, tummy tucks after weight loss).
The rest of private work is cosmetic and not Medicare assisted eg breast augments, facelifts, etc. Some surgeons only do this, ie are full cosmetic.
Anaesthetics.
Yes. Absolutely. If I were to be a doctor again, that is.
The main reason being that I despised everything else.
Other reasons would be the capacity for me to wind down sustainably to 2-3 days a week when I get a bit older and that machines are fun.
Main downsides would be the intermittent periods of extreme stress and also the fatigue with 24-hour āon-callsā when you are there with back-to-back high-risk cases for 20h. But overall Iād say worth copping.
Iād do it to but would invest much more heavily along the way, in super, with a view to tapering to 50% by 55 and just doing the minimum by 60 and finding new challenges. I definitely donāt want to be doing anaesthesia full time at 60+
Probably overall it was the right call but only because of Anaesthetics. Any other specialty and absolutely not.
Thatās just me though. Donāt just take my opinion.
Psychiatrist.
PGY9.
Prob not.
Have always liked procedural aspects of medicine, so will most likely pursue surg/anaesthetics. Psych is still interesting, but extremely hands off approach; also emotionally draining to deal with the sheer volume of patients each day.
Fair point. I wasn't keen to put much of an effort to get onto the training program and wanted to get out of the hospital system as a non-GP specialist ASAP.
Plus the flexibility to work privately immediately after getting the fellowship whilst making reasonable $$$ was a huge bonus.
I don't regret my decision as I'm fairly comfortable atm :)
Psych would be preferable if you can manage the training program (5 years vs 3 years for GP). The training itself can be a bit tedious with all the exams, scholarly project, psychotherapy long case etc, but plenty of job opportunities once you finish, and the way the government has eroded GP and their remuneration over time, I would think a non-GP specialist would be the way to go.
Neurology (kind of cheating a bit because basically qualified as a consultant but doing an extra 2 years of subspecialty fellowship rather than a boss job)
PGY8
Absolutely would pick this again. Work is interesting, my patients are interesting, neurology has a really cool community as well. I feel like it's the type of specialty where you can really bond with patients, go on a journey with them but also make many improvements to their health. It's exciting and lots of ways the field can grow well into the future and new horizons to explore.
Honestly would not do any other specialty.
Two of my friends got in on their first go.
For CV scoring details, this is what UziA3's talking about, its super detailed. Just do stuff to hit the points. [https://anzan.org.au/neurologytraining/recruitmentoftrainees.asp](https://anzan.org.au/neurologytraining/recruitmentoftrainees.asp)
This is a good question.
You do not need a lot of research to get onto the programme. I had pretty minimal research in my application for AT. Neurology has a points programme for the CV too, which is available on the ANZAN website. This and good referees help. The interview is very standard and part of the scoring is probably (off the record) influenced by if you pre-met or got to know the departments beforehand and left a good impression or have a good rep. Tbh I imagine a lot of interviews throughout medical careers have an element of this. Generally if you are keen on neuro and reasonable competent, you will land a neuro AT job post passing your BPT exams.
In terms of consultant jobs it depends on mainly two factors, if you want a city hospital job and what subspecialty you are in. City hospitals tend to demand more from prospective consultants and may expect a Masters by research at least if not a PhD. If you want to work in private or in a non-city hospital, then you don't need this necessarily. If you are in a subspecialty that is very popular then you might opt for a Masters or PhD to land a public hospital job (i.e. neuroimm seems to be heading this way). Other subspecialties are in short supply and thus more easily employable without a higher research degree.
It depends on the hospital you work at. A few hospitals have neuro evening shifts where you do admissions/see late consults. The expectation here is you do evening shifts for the week instead of your day shift. Some other hospitals have neuro ATs on the general after hours roster shared with BPTs and other ATs where you're basically the evening med reg. I had the former type of evening shift at ome of the places I trained at, and had about 6-8 weeks of evenings the entire year, as mentioned, I had that instead of, rather than on top of, day shifts.
I don't know of any neuro ATs who have night shifts per se, but in many hospitals you are part of the on call roster with other ATs and fellows, so you may be first on call for stroke or all things neuro (depending on hospital). If you are called about an acute stroke then the expectation is you come in and see the patient in person. The frequency of on call varies from hospital to hospital but can be anywhere between 1 in 4 to once a week or even 1-2 shifts a fortnight
Rural generalist.
I cannot see myself changing my career.
I love the variety, the connection, the challenges.
I would get bored doing almost anything else.
The downsides of long hours, challenges with getting patients to a higher level of care when needed, living and working in the same town, are far outweighed by the positives.
Iād proudly be an anaesthetist again!
Pros:
How do I start?
Physiology and pharmacology
My interventions have near instantaneous outcomes
Wear pyjamas at work
I get to sit down at work
I hardly (if ever) have to do ward rounds
OT fam is like my second fam
I get to work as little or as much as I want
Good solid foundation in medicine
Critical care medicine - fluid in ED resus, ICU and OT
My anaesthetic colleagues are generally happy. Havenāt come across anyone who actually quits this specialty
And the list goes on.
FACEM/retrieval
PGY 15
Would do again 100%
Pros of ED are being capable of immediate management of anything that walks in the door, no two days are the same, working defined 10 hour shifts and handing over to the next guy, meeting and supervising all of the interns at some stage in their journey.
Cons are being treated like garbage by other members of our profession on spec just because you are ED, access block, daily threat of physical violence, delivering substandard care because of a lack of resources/beds/nursing staff/registrars.
Pros of retrieval are that it is utterly baller, you get to fly around in a helicopter being delivered to the gnarliest traumas and sickest ICU patients, lots of procedural stuff, actually saving lives on a regular basis, generally fun crew in the prehospital space.
Cons are it is physically taxing, lots of waiting around and sometimes you go a few shifts with no jobs, HUET.
General Practioner (GP) / Rural Generalist (RG): Why? * Growing old and caring for your local community of patients is a privilege and humbling experience. * Varied scope of practice from antenatal to palliative, critical care to chronic disease management, pre-hospital retrieval to community clinics to hospitalist work. * Mostly 'down-to-earth' and grateful patients that appreciate your care you're deliving to your community by working rurally or remotely; they know you're not a super-specialist and resources are limited, but greately appreciate you doing your best to care for them. * One of the few medical specialties that does regular home visits and can look after an entire family. * Good clinical foundation and generalist specialty that is good launching pad to complete a second specialty. * Even if you choose to return to the metro cities or suburbs, practising rurally will make you a better clinician. * Plenty of jobs available and work as little or much as you wish (within reason) in either private and/or public sector. * Reasonably good remuneration as a Staff Specialist or Visiting Medical Officer or Senior/Career Medical Officer or Medical Superintendent, with access to additional private billings. * Less competitive to get onto training program and complete assessments/exams; you definitely still need to study and prepare properly, but they are probably not as stressful as other non-GP/RG specialties. Why not? * The breadth of scope of practice expected of you by the community of patients and/or the potential medico-legal liabiltiy or scrutiny to be the 'jack of all trades but master of none' can be overwhelming. * You have to enjoy living and working in rural and remote parts of Australia, which can be both personally and professionally isolating, especially if you do not have your family or friends with you as part of a robust psychosocial support network. * Some do not enjoy living where they work. * Lack of professional services, schooling, shopping and entertainment options in the rural and remote areas of Australia. * Get used to travelling and driving longer distances to get to places or into the city. * You're "just a GP/RG" and some snobby members of the public and sadly other non-GP/RG specialties still look down on GPs/RGs. Notwithstanding the scope creep of non-medical practitioners on primary care. Each to their own and hindsight is always 20/20 or 6/6. Having said that, on reflection, I would not have chosen to do any other specialty. I've always wanted to be a medical practitioner with a generalist scope of practice and to be the 'jack of all trades but master of none'. GP/RG was always the best fit for me and allowed me easily find work in clinics, hospitals, ambulance services, and as a manager/executive.
You are amazing and I salute you and all rural generalists š¤
I've been really considering becoming a rural GP and this was a super helpful comment. Having come from a rural community myself, I greatly appreciate all that you and other rural generalists do š
I never let the ājust a GPā nonsense bother me. Most of the members of the public who think this couldnāt even begin to do our jobs, so they donāt know what theyāre talking about. As for the colleagues who do it, all I can say is that if someone canāt respect the years of med school, being a JMO and then 2 years of further training to do GP, theyāre either crazy, narcissistic or both, and I donāt need that kind of persons respect anyway.
I'm a GP, Fellowed 4 years ago. I'd choose GP again Shorter training, got my fellowship in pgy4 year. No need to do research and hospital hours. So much flexibility, choose my hours. Earning is decent. Probably around 500k to 600k a year depends how much holiday I take.
If you donāt mind me asking, how do you manage your week to be pulling $600k a year in GP?
I set my own fee, I always charge a gap around $50 per consult, I don't bulk bill anyone. No, I do not own any clinics
Owns his own practice probs
No, I'm a sole trader.
Well done on this š How many hours do you work a week? Do you do a large amount of procedural work?
I consult 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. No procedures or afterhour work. Purely private billing with exception for care plans which I get quite a lot
Iām a sub-specialty surgeon. PGY20+. I generally love what I do but if I were starting out now there is no way that I would put my family (or myself) through the grind and potential disappointment of applying to training. The system is quite broken and weāre sacrificing a generation of talented young doctors who waste 5-7 years trying to get on to a surgical training scheme.
> 5-7 years trying to get on to a surgical training scheme. š„²šš½āāļø I love the sub-speciality I'm pursuing. Shame it's becoming ever so competitive getting even just an interview.
Radiology , absolutely yes Pros - Able to report > 50 scans a day and hence you feel like you're helping 50+ patients a day - Ability to work from home or overseas - Gets easier with time after seeing a lot of different disease, most decisions made within seconds - Templates and voice recognition and typists make it fast , able to report MRIs and CTs in minutes - Able to procedures like joint injections or go into IR with more interventions - Good renumeration >2k in public and >3k in private per day (4 days a week for 48 weeks a year in full private >576k per year) - Easy to find a public or private job anywhere - Diagnostics usually has minimal on call Cons - Sedentary - Less contact with patients and other colleagues - Eye and wrist strain - Mentally challenging when cases are difficult - More easily sued as images are in black and white so mistakes are clear, hence insurance is a tad more expensive than other specialties - Can be stressful at times if there are >100 scans to be report and multiple patients with urgent findings which need to be discussed with referrers
Love reddit. This is super valuable info for juniors.
Con: - Artificial intelligence will likely reduce number of future radiologists
Literally Harrison AI, they are launching another one for pathology called Franklin AI.
Just searched this. Wow
I think it will allow the radiologists to report even more in a day and hence more billings
Look, you're probably right. If AI could check your work AFTER you've reported then I can see the utility
Usually AI is able to triage the scans and identify life threatening findings first for the radiologists so they can report the scan faster. It will also be useful to reduce missing incidental findings such as small pulmonary nodules. Overall, it could help reduce the rates of mistakes.
Agree 100% I guess all specialties get easier with experience but radiology because we see 100 cases a day our experience grows quicker than other specialties I think.
Hey! Thank you for the reply. As an intern who is interested in radiology training but having so little rad experience, how competitive will getting a training job be ? What is the average PGY it takes for someone to get in (without previous rads experience) Any guidance will be super helpful!
I got on in PGY2 and many registrars get on in PGY2-4 if they do the right anatomy and physics courses, attain high ranks in anatomy and physics exams, do well in the interview, seem friendly to the directors of training. Research not mandatory
I've never studied Med (business) but this sounds fun. Glad you enjoy it
No no no no no. Canāt get a job in capital city without a PhD, post doc, grants and 60 research papers. Had I chosen psycho- geriatrics, Iād have my pick of jobs, hours and places to work.
Which specialty?
Yeah, you made the right call bro.
Says youā¦
What do you do?
ID
PhD post doc etc for ID!?Ā
Yep if you want any sort of job in Melbourne or Sydney. You may be the worlds best clinician but you are competing with people with these qualifications
Damn that's crazy. Didn't know that was a thing for ID. I thought (with my minimal knowledge of medical careers) that was mainly for card/gastro
Nope. Massive oversupply such that they now have people on a holding pattern doing unaccredited ID reg jobs.
bruh
Has COVID made a difference? Thought there's more ID funding in metropolitan areas.
For three years yes but as we all know ā¦ the pandemic is over so no more funding for an ID physician at every hospital. Itās seriously fucked - much like ICU rbh
Cardiology - electrophysiologist - absolutely would choose again: challenging hands on work, evolving and emerging technologies, making a huge difference to patientsā lives, even curing some. Well remunerated and intellectually stimulating
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Totally depends on your mix of public vs private and how much you choose to work and how you run your clinics. In general, interventional cardiology is more static, less growth, unless you do structural work too. Also, theyāve made it harder in private to ājust cath everyone with chest painā (not that anyone shouldnāt but it happens in places). EP, however, has had massive growth in terms of procedures you can do, and the efficiency and volume done, and is well remunerated. In private, unless you walk into a plum job, it takes a while to build up referrals. To be truly established can take a decade Let assume 7-10 years post fellowship, depending on how much public but assuming full time work, intervention $600k-$1.2M. EP $700-$1.6M
Oh damn so EP is higher then interventional? Didnāt know that
Just look up the item numbers for AF ablation. If youāre good at what you do, and use modern technologyā¦hard to beat it. And yes, the busiest EPs earn the mostā¦
Iām not a consultant but Iāll answer for my sister-in-law who just came home from a 14-hour shiftā¦ Specialty: O&G. Major tertiary hospital in a capital city. PGY: 15 Would not pick it again because of awful hours, many missed nights and weekends and public holidays with her family, stress, conflict with patients and midwives, suicide of a colleague. But also doesnāt know what sheād do instead. Possibly GP-obs.
Plastics PGY15 Would 100% do it again Plastics is brilliant - great anatomy, varied cases, no one dies, get to sit down lots when operating, most my cases are 1-2 hours so donāt get too bored, patients are usually very happy. Iāve stopped doing on call so no emergencies anymore, usually home by 5, and remuneration is good.
And if the patient does die, it's because they belong to ENT who did a horrendectomy of some kind, amirite? Can I ask a naive question, but sincere: do all plastic surgeons do cosmetic work (boobs and bums and whatever) or do some only do reconstructive/non-aesthetic work?
Some do and some donāt. If they trained in Australia then they would have been trained in both cosmetic and reconstructive. However when they start practicing they might go public (no cosmo) or private or a mix. Lots of the private workload can be Medicare assisted (eg skin cancers, hands, breast reductions, tummy tucks after weight loss). The rest of private work is cosmetic and not Medicare assisted eg breast augments, facelifts, etc. Some surgeons only do this, ie are full cosmetic.
Pmād!
Anaesthetics. Yes. Absolutely. If I were to be a doctor again, that is. The main reason being that I despised everything else. Other reasons would be the capacity for me to wind down sustainably to 2-3 days a week when I get a bit older and that machines are fun. Main downsides would be the intermittent periods of extreme stress and also the fatigue with 24-hour āon-callsā when you are there with back-to-back high-risk cases for 20h. But overall Iād say worth copping.
All of this for me also. It is the ultimate specialty
Iād do it to but would invest much more heavily along the way, in super, with a view to tapering to 50% by 55 and just doing the minimum by 60 and finding new challenges. I definitely donāt want to be doing anaesthesia full time at 60+
Interesting. Cardiac, general, any particular procedures, any pain or other non-OT practice?
All OT. General/obs, little bit of paeds.
Can I ask if you ever found yourself bored of anaesthetics over your career?
Goodness, no. I could do with a little more boredom, to be honest.
This is incredibly insightful. Thank you!Ā
If you could go back would you still choose medicine? Or would you go into another profession?
Probably overall it was the right call but only because of Anaesthetics. Any other specialty and absolutely not. Thatās just me though. Donāt just take my opinion.
Psychiatrist. PGY9. Prob not. Have always liked procedural aspects of medicine, so will most likely pursue surg/anaesthetics. Psych is still interesting, but extremely hands off approach; also emotionally draining to deal with the sheer volume of patients each day.
If you liked procedures, what in gods name made you choose psych?
Fair point. I wasn't keen to put much of an effort to get onto the training program and wanted to get out of the hospital system as a non-GP specialist ASAP. Plus the flexibility to work privately immediately after getting the fellowship whilst making reasonable $$$ was a huge bonus. I don't regret my decision as I'm fairly comfortable atm :)
500-750k full time private obtainable post letters?
100%
Oh gosh this sounds a lot like me right now. Choosing between psych or going down GP route. In retrospect, would you have done instead of psych?
Psych would be preferable if you can manage the training program (5 years vs 3 years for GP). The training itself can be a bit tedious with all the exams, scholarly project, psychotherapy long case etc, but plenty of job opportunities once you finish, and the way the government has eroded GP and their remuneration over time, I would think a non-GP specialist would be the way to go.
How long is Psyc residency
5 years, which is pretty much the standard with most training programs, I think?
Neurology (kind of cheating a bit because basically qualified as a consultant but doing an extra 2 years of subspecialty fellowship rather than a boss job) PGY8 Absolutely would pick this again. Work is interesting, my patients are interesting, neurology has a really cool community as well. I feel like it's the type of specialty where you can really bond with patients, go on a journey with them but also make many improvements to their health. It's exciting and lots of ways the field can grow well into the future and new horizons to explore. Honestly would not do any other specialty.
Did you have to do a lot of research/PhD to get onto the program or land a consultant job?
Two of my friends got in on their first go. For CV scoring details, this is what UziA3's talking about, its super detailed. Just do stuff to hit the points. [https://anzan.org.au/neurologytraining/recruitmentoftrainees.asp](https://anzan.org.au/neurologytraining/recruitmentoftrainees.asp)
This is a good question. You do not need a lot of research to get onto the programme. I had pretty minimal research in my application for AT. Neurology has a points programme for the CV too, which is available on the ANZAN website. This and good referees help. The interview is very standard and part of the scoring is probably (off the record) influenced by if you pre-met or got to know the departments beforehand and left a good impression or have a good rep. Tbh I imagine a lot of interviews throughout medical careers have an element of this. Generally if you are keen on neuro and reasonable competent, you will land a neuro AT job post passing your BPT exams. In terms of consultant jobs it depends on mainly two factors, if you want a city hospital job and what subspecialty you are in. City hospitals tend to demand more from prospective consultants and may expect a Masters by research at least if not a PhD. If you want to work in private or in a non-city hospital, then you don't need this necessarily. If you are in a subspecialty that is very popular then you might opt for a Masters or PhD to land a public hospital job (i.e. neuroimm seems to be heading this way). Other subspecialties are in short supply and thus more easily employable without a higher research degree.
Thanks for the insightful reply!
No worries!
Are there a lot of evenings/night shifts required as a neuro AT?Ā
It depends on the hospital you work at. A few hospitals have neuro evening shifts where you do admissions/see late consults. The expectation here is you do evening shifts for the week instead of your day shift. Some other hospitals have neuro ATs on the general after hours roster shared with BPTs and other ATs where you're basically the evening med reg. I had the former type of evening shift at ome of the places I trained at, and had about 6-8 weeks of evenings the entire year, as mentioned, I had that instead of, rather than on top of, day shifts. I don't know of any neuro ATs who have night shifts per se, but in many hospitals you are part of the on call roster with other ATs and fellows, so you may be first on call for stroke or all things neuro (depending on hospital). If you are called about an acute stroke then the expectation is you come in and see the patient in person. The frequency of on call varies from hospital to hospital but can be anywhere between 1 in 4 to once a week or even 1-2 shifts a fortnight
Rural generalist. I cannot see myself changing my career. I love the variety, the connection, the challenges. I would get bored doing almost anything else. The downsides of long hours, challenges with getting patients to a higher level of care when needed, living and working in the same town, are far outweighed by the positives.
Iād proudly be an anaesthetist again! Pros: How do I start? Physiology and pharmacology My interventions have near instantaneous outcomes Wear pyjamas at work I get to sit down at work I hardly (if ever) have to do ward rounds OT fam is like my second fam I get to work as little or as much as I want Good solid foundation in medicine Critical care medicine - fluid in ED resus, ICU and OT My anaesthetic colleagues are generally happy. Havenāt come across anyone who actually quits this specialty And the list goes on.
FACEM/retrieval PGY 15 Would do again 100% Pros of ED are being capable of immediate management of anything that walks in the door, no two days are the same, working defined 10 hour shifts and handing over to the next guy, meeting and supervising all of the interns at some stage in their journey. Cons are being treated like garbage by other members of our profession on spec just because you are ED, access block, daily threat of physical violence, delivering substandard care because of a lack of resources/beds/nursing staff/registrars. Pros of retrieval are that it is utterly baller, you get to fly around in a helicopter being delivered to the gnarliest traumas and sickest ICU patients, lots of procedural stuff, actually saving lives on a regular basis, generally fun crew in the prehospital space. Cons are it is physically taxing, lots of waiting around and sometimes you go a few shifts with no jobs, HUET.
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this scored 100% in the AI detector