twrama 1990_final oc.. - AMA WA

OPINION
Decisions, decisions
by Dr Maya Rajagopalan
2012 Intern at Royal Perth Hospital
am writing this article at a time when my colleagues and
I friends are finding out whether they have been accepted
into a training program. Some have been successful but many
haven’t. For those that have, it is a time of relief and joy as
they realise that their hard work and determination has been
rewarded through the acknowledgement of their seniors. For
those that haven’t, it is either a time of stoic resignation to
another year as a junior doctor as they continue their current
goals or despair as they reconsider their future goals and
aspirations. For the few months surrounding this key moment,
the conversations in the Doctors’ Common Room focus
on carefully dissecting what is required to enter into each
specialty.
The economics of medical training has become an
increasingly topical subject, with such issues as university full
fee-paying medical places being a regular in the news at the
start of each academic year. What is not regularly discussed
is the cost associated with building up the CV to a level where
you will be competitive in your application to a specialty
college. Courses, conferences and further qualifications can
cost junior doctors thousands of dollars each year, placing
financial strain on a population who have spent a significant
time out of the workforce studying.
Since the start of internship, there has been increasing
pressure for my colleagues and I to choose a specialty in which
to pursue a career. We are all too aware of the rising number of
junior doctors in the system, the popularity of certain training
programs, and the desire to perfect our work-life balance.
This has lead many to base such an important decision on
the knowledge and experiences we have gained so far, mostly
coming from rotations in medical school. These experiences
were brief and superficial, lacking the insight that is gained by
working as a junior doctor in a specialty.
So how can we improve this situation? I don’t believe that
there is an easy solution. The financial cost incurred for
training courses and attendance at conferences is a burden that
must be carried. But what we can review in Western Australia
is the ability of junior doctors to focus on terms in which they
have an interest. We can look at the Victorian Health System,
which offers early streaming
into medical, surgical, and
critical care rotations for
Residency giving doctors
more experiences – thereby
mitigating the risk of pursuing
a career in a field that they may
later realise is undesirable.
Such a change may assist in
reducing the bottleneck that is
developing due to increasing
demand for specialty training
by ensuring that applicants
are certain of their career
choices. ■
32 MEDICUS October