Hi All,
I'm a 30y/o Australian Medical Student from Sydney, have also studied Medical Science.
Happy to answer questions as best I can about Medical Practice / Medical School from the perspective of a Medical Student.
Just to be 100% clear Med Student - Not a Doctor incase you missed it the last three times.
I went on an overnight horseride with a couple of medical students once.
We were in a tent, at night, it was dark, and one of them sneezed, and while he sneezed he yelled the word 'plaaaaacenta!'.
It sounded and felt like an exploding placenta.
I've heard a story from Melbourne Uni, where a medical student was at a urinal, and as other guys lined up either side of him, he very deliberately did up his zip and screamed, while at the same time dropping the severed donger from a cadaver into the urinal. The other guys, assuming it was his personal donger, started fainting around him, except for one, who was a academic in medicine who triggered the formal disciplinary process.
So my questions are:
Do all medical students say 'placenta' when they sneeze?
Do all medical students carry a severed donger?
Thank you.
Lmao that severed donger is a legend that is spread throughout all med schools but with different versions. The one I heard of was that it happened in UNSW decades ago and that was part of the reason why they dont get the opportunity to do full cadaveric dissections.
oh my goodness, I could never image that happening! But to answer your questions, no i've never heard anyone sneezing out placenta perhaps a trend I can start? and no severed dongers (to the best of my knowledge).
DrSyd - I have a couple of questions I would greatly appreciate if you (or another Dr) could help with?
My son is about to commence his 2nd year of pharmacy and has aspirations to do medicine after his third year. He wants to be a psychiatrist. He has an essential tremor which makes his hands shake. Do you think this will be a showstopper for him? As to how bad it is, it isn’t something they would notice at an interview - I just wouldn’t want him using a scalpel on me.
Also, do you know if psychiatry is a difficult specialty to get in to?
Hey Lms1306,
I also have an essential tremor which I was prescribed medication to keep at bay, I haven't taken it now for 5 years. I don't think it will be a problem, my tremor can be pretty bad particularly noticeable when I am holding things. Wasn't an issue during interview, I don't think they will have any issues even if they did notice.
I cant answer your question on psychiatry but im sure somewhere here will be able to give you a better idea.
Have a doctor with really bad essential tremor since he was a kid. He got through med 50 years ago. Should be much easier now!
essential tremor definitely not a showstopper. you may be less adept at bread and butter procedural work such as cannulation and minor procedures during junior years but that will hardly matter if you wish to do psychiatry.
psychiatry is mostly undersubscribed and one of the easier specialties to get into. you are almost guaranteed a training spot if you show interest and work hard early. also jobs are plenty especially if you are willing to go rural. massive shortage there
Lms, consider Dinesh as inspiration.. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-09/dinesh-palipana-queens…
(photos show him using his hands, but he has limited feeling/function.. I've met him since the accident)
But, your concerns may already be addressed by drsyd's response.
dinesh featured on australian story tonight:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/the-man-in-bed-10/9471402
Some basic procedural work is pretty important in your junior years (cannulating, phlebotomy, stitches, minor biopsies). Getting it as best under control would be useful for that.
I don't think it would be a show stopper though particularly not if he wants to do psychiatry.
I've seen a cardiac surgeon with a obvious tremor before and he could still anastomose the coronary arteries to the aorta so no. A essential tremor (even severe) won't prevent you from going into medicine or even becoming a surgeon (you prob just have to work and train harder).
How do you compare the quality of Australian medical education (& training) vs that of UK, the rest of EU, US, India and China (of course comparing the top unis of all as some of these countries might have a long tail of unis)?
Is it true that the more patients and variety of illnesses a doc sees in his/her profession, the better his/her diagnosis and practical skills are? Doesn't it be a challenge in less populated country like ours where docs see a limited number of people in a day and not that wide range of illnesses as docs in China, India or US are used to?
I think working in a tertiary hospital in an Australian capital city you'll get a good range of cases. Some of us still go overseas to do fellowship years for additional training, often in procedural skills at prestigious hospitals. The only real issue with limited case variety is in smaller hospitals, so we all spend some time in tertiary centres if we're doing hospital focused training (ie, not GP). Some of the GPs particularly rural ones may never work in a big tertiary centre.
Anything that is so rare that you're not likely to ever see a case in Australia isn't likely to help 99.999% of doctors here anyway.
So, I've got this rash on my freckle………
You get a patient that says they were injured as a child by the Minister for health. An injury that’s still presenting but records tried to hush up. What do you do.
Call Avant et al
Would you donate your body to science?
I asked my GP if he would and he said "No" he's seen what happens to them.
I would but organ donation is more important. If my organs weren't useful I'd happily do it. It's just my meat. may as well be useful.
As someone who works in the industry my sole advice would be to do as many rotations in rural country towns. In addition potentially spend a year or two there once you have become a GP. You will be forced to make more difficault decisions and upskill in order to cope with the limited specialist access.
Would you recommend perhaps going down the ACRRM Pathway, are there more opportunities ? I myself live in a fringe area and am open to the idea of working in Rural / Remote areas within my home state but we do reply on my wife's income so might be more difficult unless I can do a few weeks at a time. I have done country postings in the past in my current profession and really enjoyed the lifestyle/
I know of a few GP's that work 3 days in the country and travel (2-3 hours) back to the city to do a city posting. It is a stressful lifestyle though and tough if you have a young family. I don't think you would particularly need to go through the ACRRM pathway, unless you are planning to go rural long in the long term. The lack of current GP's that currently exists in Australia (particularly WA) means that finding a job opportunity is often not limited. You may benefit from looking into a special interest that supports a role in the local hospital. Once again GP's with interest/training in anaesthetics (etc) are highly valued in rural areas.
I agree you may encounter more challenging situations in the country, you should always remember that help/advice is only a phone call away and if unsure you can always look up on the relevant guidelines/Uptodate/Best Practice online.
As part of initiation do you need to stay overnight in a dead people room all by yourself?
Lmao I've never heard of this initiation before
Hi,
I did the UMAT 2 times in yr 12 and did GAMSAT 2 times at University. I have to say that GAMSAT was a lot harder requiring a lot more preparation. Not getting through UMAT pathway I ended up doing a allied health course. I now work as a allied health professional and quite happy with the job. After trying 4 times I have given up.
I know some people get in first go, good on them. But it is quite competitive.
G'day drsyd, well done getting into medicine and I hope you thought long and hard about doing medicine because working is very different from studying medicine.
I'm currently working as a GP registrar in Adelaide and it's a blast! Variety and lifestyle makes for an excellent career choice.
I'll put it out there right now though, I'd have to say that medical school definitely doesn't prepare you to work as a doctor and the learning curve is very steep. But luckily most junior doctors adapt pretty quickly.
Hi Chongsu,
Thanks for posting, I too want to become a GP when the time comes, and the for same reasons you mentioned. You're right, the real learning wont start until i'm actually out there and working and gaining first hand experience. I will be glad once uni is over although I do still have a while to go, I will make the most of it whilst Im here.
Did you always have your mind set on being a GP?
Not originally. I actually had a keen interest in general surgery after coming out of med school. But as I said before, the idea of working as a surgeon and actually working in general surgery are two different beasts. Ultimately I realised during my resident and senior resident years that the surgical lifestyle was not for me.
And I think you'll find that there's a large number of GP registrars who only went into GP after working a number of years in other disciplines only to realise GP is the most compatible speciality for their personality and life priorities.
Now that I'm working as a GP registrar, couldn't be happier with my decision. I'm lucky my supervisor specialises in skin, so I get to learn and perform different skin related surgical procedures so I can satisfy that side of my interests too!
What do they teach you about CSF leaks at med school and specifically spontaneous ones?
Doesn't seem that many in the Australian medical community know anything about them and they occur more commonly than you'd think.
I went to various doctors in Brisbane who all dismissed that I could have a CSF leak. I ended up flying to Sydney to get treatment. The first neurologist I saw in Sydney instantly knew that I had a CSF leak (without me telling him my suspicion). MRI confirmed sub dural CSF.
Why are Dr's so dismissive of patients thoughts and feelings. I was told it's rare to happen and especially if I've not had a trauma injury. This simply Isn't true as many hypermobile people can get it due to underlying connective tissue disorders.
It was so obvious by symptoms what was wrong but I was sent home without any treatment from. A&E and multiple Dr's visits and as a result ended up with damage to the cranial nerves around my brain.
Basically i've found if a Dr doesn't know what's going on they don't like to admit it as it seems to be an ego thing. Please don't be like this with your patients.
What symptoms did you have if you don't mind me asking?
Intracranial hypotension causing Orthostatic Headaches. I.e bad headaches as soon as you stand. Though calling them a headache is really doing a disservice to the condition and the people that suffer it. It's nothing like a headache. It's the most intense pain ever expereinced in your head on going vertical and it's caused by the lack of spinal fluid supporting the brain. I.e lack of buoyancy. So the brain sags down onto your spinal cords and causes a crushing and throbbing pain. It resolves almost immediately on going horizontal.
Heaps of other symptoms
-loss of vision
-pulsatile and high pitched tinnitus
- Extreme neck pain
- nausea and vomiting
- serious lack of energy
- issues with any of the cranial nerves which are compressed by the brain due to lack of buoyancy.
Coffee (caffine) helps with the symptoms. Within 15 minutes of having a coffee i had much more tolerable symptoms. But it only last maybe a hour or two. Caffine helping is a big clue that you have it, because the caffine increase CSF production or pressure (Drs not 100% sure why it works)
After time for some people the body can adjust by increasing CSF production above the loss rate, so within months some people may have more normal lumbar puncture pressures but can still have continuing headaches and symptoms albeit less severe than onset. For some people the onset symptoms remain as severe until fixed.
Fixing is the hard part, it's often like looking for a needle in a hay stack finding the leak site. Blood patches can be done, but are only successfully if target at area of hole in Dura. Botched epidurals are easier to fix as the hole is a pin prick, but connective tissue tears may be much larger and surgery may be the only option to fix these.
Also only a few hospitals in the world know how to truly treat this and have dedicated team dealing only with CSF leaks.
Many patients go years diagnosed before they find these hospitals.
Macquarie University Hospital in Sydney is now become more experienced as many Australian and NZ patients are now flocking there for treatment. In the last 12 Months they have seen a huge increase in patient numbers. With the concentrated number of patients they are learning and becoming more experienced and have been talking to top neurosurgeons at Cedar Sinai to learn from them. I've seen quite a number of Australian patients get fixed through surgery there after spending years dealing with CSF Leaks and failed blood patches at other hospitals.
That was very informative thanks! As medical students we tend to remember more from talking to patients than reading it out of a textbook. I hope you're feeling better now.
Do you have an underlying connective tissue disorder?
Yeah i have EDS.
Had never heard of EDS before my spinal leak but i did have obvious hypermobility. Saw a geneticist back in November and he confirmed a hyper-mobility/classical EDS. I scored 7/9 on the beighton scale.
Growing up as a kid for a period of about 5-6 years my knee used to dislocate a lot. Then my shoulders dislocated 2 or 3 times playing sports in my late teens, and sometimes sublaxes a bit.
Other than that it's never caused me any issues until last year.
Hi @DrSyd, tanks for taking the time to start this thread! I'm interested in applying for medicine and would very much like your input on how to proceed. I went into a nanotechnology/science double-degree out of highschool because I didn't get into medicine (or biomed) and majored in chemistry and physics. My initial intentions were to use this degree as a stepping stone to graduate medicine but ended up really enjoying it and went on to complete a masters in nanotechnology/biochemistry. I'm now in my second year of PhD in biochemistry (looking at breast cancer treatments) and have met several medical oncologists/researchers that have inspired to me to pursue a career in medicine. So I have been considering applying for medicine after I complete my PhD next year, undergo training to become a medical oncologist and hopefully continue my research in breast cancer. I understand that it will be a long journey before I reach the place I have in mind but my main concern is actually being accepted into a medical degree. I would prefer to stay in Vic and it seems my two main options are Melb uni or Deakin, but I would have to take a bridging course to complete the (anatomy and physiology) prerequisites to get into Melb uni. Also, being a full-time PhD candidate I don't really have time for extracurriculars and have very limited volunteer work under my belt. Do you think having a PhD, a stronger background in chemistry/physics than biochemistry and limited volunteer work would set me at a disadvantage when it comes to apply for medicine? If so, do you have any advice on how to increase my chances at being accepted? I still have about two years before I apply so hopefully there is something I can do in that time to make me a more attractive candidate.
Final year Melbourne student here. I can't speak for those who are in programs/are surgeons themselves who will have a greater insight, but I can offer my two cents. I'm currently doing my research project in cardiothoracic surgery, and have been spending quite a bit of time with the team. Having spoken to quite a few of the consultants, PhD students are in highly sought after for a number of reasons:
1. Great level of maturity
2. Experience above and beyond that of what medical school will equip you with in the realm of clinical research
3. A competent skill set and proven track record/determination to finish arduous tasks
One of the foremost orthopaedic surgeons gave a talk to us once and said this: "Every Tom, Dick and Harry Registrar/resident comes up to me and asks to do research in the hope of adding to their CV, and I tell them: go pursue a PhD. Because at the end of the day, when there are 450 doctors applying for 45 positions in Orthopaedics within Australia, you're fighting a hell of a battle with every other Tom, Dick and Harry who've completed more or less the same things. That is, there is 1 spot for every 10 students. However, of the 450 applying every year, 7 of them have a PhD under their belt - and guess what? Those are the ones who increase their odds to 7 spots for every 1 student. Do a PhD, it will attest to your academic and clinical rigour above and beyond most if not all of those who only pursue CV-polishing research papers.
From what I gather, the student who most deserves to attain a position in Medical school isn't necessarily the same one who volunteers every hour of their life to better the lives of orphans. While that's admirable and often a very good thing to add in your interviews, don't confuse altruism with Medicine. Entering medical school requires a number of checkboxes, including a personal fervour spelled out by your candidacy in your Doctor of Philosophy, in addition to academics and co-curricular activities. As such, my opinion is that your qualifications alone sound like they far outweigh most students in our cohort, and would in fact be an outright advantage over others, which is why I would advise you to apply for medicine.
As for the university, I can't say I'm not biased, but I would favour Melbourne over Deakin. While yes, there are a bunch of Type A personalities at Melbourne, the standard of academia and practice at the hospitals they offer are outstanding, and for every self righteous idiot, you will find a greater number of genuine and talented individuals who make the journey all that much better.
Thanks for the detailed response @Jaystea, I really appreciate it! It's a relief to hear that I still have a chance at getting into med school. That being said, I don't exactly have the best WAM from my undergrad course as I did fairly poorly in the early years of my degree but ended up getting better grades in my final years after being diagnosed with ADHD. Do you think that a relatively poor academic record (in comparison to a straight-A student) and having ADHD would have any affect on my application?
Melbourne uni is definitely my first choice but I don't have high hopes for it because I assume it is more competitive as a Go8 University. I'm hoping to complete the anatomy and physiology units at Melbourne either this year or next year (assuming my PhD committee allows me to) but I'm not quite sure when the best time to sit the GAMSAT would be. Should I be considering sitting the one in September this year or just push it off to next year in case I don't get through my PhD in the planned time? Also, should I be worried about/studying for the GAMSAT or is it fairly straightforward for someone with my background?
Thanks again for the response, your insight has been very valuable!
I'm not the biggest fan of the GAMSAT, but while there is not better way to screen students, I won't complain.
It is something you can study for, and I know many people who did and did very well in it. From now to September is ample time to study. Do it this year, do it again next year, it's up to you. Do it 10 times if you want over 5 years, people do that.
With WAM, it ultimately comes down to the cohort and what the university cut offs are, I can't help you in that department.
I don't think your condition defines you - and I don't believe you let it either.
@Jaystea: Thanks, you've been really helpful! I guess I'll just have to keep trying until I get in.
I agree, my condition definitely doesn't define me but I have heard of stigma in regards to "mental health issues" in the medical field and have heard of people not disclosing their condition when applying for med school to avoid any discrimination but I'm hoping that's more of a thing in the states than here.
I'm on a training program at the moment.
Your PhD will be valuable in both getting into medical school and getting onto a training program down the track (plus jobs!). Your biggest hurdle will be the GAMSAT and most graduate medical schools will welcome you with open arms if you have a master's by research or a PhD (last I checked, some unis consider a PhD as having a GPA of 7.0). If I recall correctly, the GAMSAT was chemistry and physics heavy — the biology questions were a joke. I think you'll be fine if you can write a good essay ;)
What Jaystea said ^^^^^^
Great Response
@DrSyd should you see a Dr if you’re addicted to ozbargain
-asking for a friend.
lol @ jped
I got a curious question, out of all your teachers who's your favourite and who's the most interesting?
I’m a GP of 4 years… I love it… everyday is different… I love long term continuity of care. I work in two practices to vary it up. I do complex skin cancer surgery, vasectomies, refugee medicine, palliative care and complex diabetes care, but really what ever in between… General practice is what you make it… you can be just that lousy cough and cold doctor but patients will not follow you… the good doctors will build loyalty and word gets out over time…
This sounds exactly like what I am aiming for! Im glad to hear you're enjoying it, was it hard to gain experience in surgery etc prior to your GP training or along the way?
It’s all in training location… hopefully you can do GP training in a clinic that suits your interests… I was very fortunate to have an awesome preceptor whom taught me so much of his knowledge and skill… if in any case you can also do courses via health cert to upskil and they can link you up to clinics to get hands on experience… GP training is getting increasingly competitive like with anything medical… of course if you go more outer metro you get more hands on surgical experience and less competitive..
how did you prepare for umat/gamsat?
OP somehow ended up in penalty box.
RIP
i wonder want happened
wife taught me this