Australian medical school questions

[carc2023]

Can anyone tell me what days are like for medical students in Australia? By this I mean how much time is spent in Classes, Hospitals, Studying etc. by year. I know that each University is different but I am just trying to get the general idea. I am interested in both 4 and 6 year programs. Thanks in advance. Also when are the vacations and do students get them every year?

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[lizzy21]

Hey carc2023,

I'm from the Univ of New South Wales in Australia. Regarding the hours spent, it does vary from person to person, some people can spend like 24 hours studying and stuff but others can just bludge the whole time and yet managed to pull through, so it really depends on you. My programme is the 6-year undergrad programme where basically the first 3-years more centred on university teaching and learning the theory bits while the next 3 years are spent in hospitals doing various rotations. For the first 3 years, I think the workload is the heaviest in the 3rd year where you spent nearly 9-5 in classes Mon to Friday, there are however some talks about changing the way the course is structured so things might change in the next couple of years, I'm not too sure about that though. As for the clinical years where you go to hospital, the time that you choose to spend in hospital is really rather subjective. When I was doing a rotation that I really enjoy, sometimes I'm in hospital 7-7 Monday to Fri and there were times where I stayed overnight or till late at night becoz there were some interesting cases or something like that, so there are really no fixed hours. There are days when I dont go to hospital at all.. so really it's up to you. I dont know whether what I've said is of any help. Feel free to ask more questions if you like. Take care..

liz..

 

[carc2023]

Do you get vacations at the end of every year or do the clinical years just run straight through without breaks?

 

[lizzy21]

You get vacations at the end of every year and there are also breaks of about 1 week throughout the year.The end of year vacation usually varies from 1 month to about 2 months depending on the year.

liz..

 

[treesap]

Okay, I admit...I am not a computer guru. I noticed your post is similar to one a while ago, where many (including Kimberli Cox who attended Flinders) posted their "average" daily schedules. So, to help you out, I tried to search for it and got these threads. I don't know if they'll be clickable, but if you can't access them (due to my operator error), you can do a search that may answer your question.

<a href="http://www.studentdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=2&t=000480&p=2" target="_blank">SDN</a>
<a href="http://www.qksrv.net/click-825157-819635" target="_blank">SDN</a>

I couldn't remember which forum I saw that in. Too bad you can't choose "search all forums"

 

[Ange]

Hi! I'm a 4th year at Monash Uni in Melbourne, Australia. I pretty much agree with Lizzy on the schedule. The first 3 years are pretty much 9-5pm, Mon-Fri. At Monash, in the pre clinical years 2nd year was prolly the hardest. In the clinical years, as Lizzy said, it's pretty much up to u. There are tutorials to attend prolly 4 times a week in various subjects, and for the rest of the time it's up to u- you can go and see patients (take histories and do physical examinations), go to surgery, spend time in emergency....basically just do what u what most the time. Sometimes the open endedness of it all frustrates me, and more direction would be nice, but i guess it's all up to u.
Hope that helps u! I would like to hear what the schedule is like in the US and whether it is as open ended as it is here at Monash..... <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

 

[carc2023]

Is year six your internship year or is that separate?

 

[Ange]

Originally posted by carc2023:
•Is year six your internship year or is that separate?•••

Internship is after 6th year
Probably the same as in the US, u put in your preferences for what hospital u want to do your intership at, then everyone gets ranked according to marks and u get chosen according to your ranking