Possible 4th year rotation in Australia advice

[neelyboy]

Hello, I'm a 3rd year medical student in the US and am looking to go to Australia for an international 4 week elective early in my 4th year (Around May/June of 2015).

I am interested in going to the Royal Prince Alfred hospital in Sydney, as well as possibly St. Vincent's. Could you recommend one to me or another?

My info: I will be going with one other fellow classmate, both of us who are not interested in doing a surgical elective there and would like to do something medical, likely general medicine, GI, cards or EM. We want to be in an urban place, close to downtown areas of Sydney with good public transit (RPA and St. Vincent's both seem to fit that) along with having a good amount of clinical duties but that would also allow for time to explore the area outside the hospital.

Please let me know if there is any other advice/places to go/electives etc. Also if you went how your experience was.

Thank you!

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[neelyboy]

Also, I was looking into the Royal Flying Doctor Service and am very interested in that as well. Anyone have any experience with that?

 

[Winged Scapula]

You should consider posting in the Australia forum where you'll likely get more responses.

 

[Winged Scapula]

FYI: it will be cool (high 40s-mid 60s) in Sydney in May/June. Not exactly beach weather.

 

[elysiumgreen]

I live in Melbourne (and am Australian) so I can't comment that much on Sydney. Probably both of those hospitals are comparable, they're both tertiary level centres as far as I know. My impression is that Australian med students are far less hard core than Americans. We don't have licensing exams, in most states your hospital is allocated to you by ballot (lottery almost) and you're required to complete a general year and usually 3ish more general hospital years rotating around before entering a training program.

The RFDS is awesome BUT
- It will most likely be really really difficult for an American student to get into because it's very popular
- Preference will be given to Australian students because it will be seen as an opportunity to encourage students to enter rural practice (where we have a doctor shortage)
- From what I've heard, often the student gets left behind on big emergency/retrievals because the weights of the plane are very specific.

If you wanted to do something similar to the RFDS and complete a rotation in Indigneous health without the retrieval aspect but still get a lot of emergency mixed with general practice, then I would contact Flinders Uni or James Cook and talk to them about electives OR I would contact NTGPE which is the general practice training body for the Northern Territory.

 

[Winged Scapula]

If you wanted to do something similar to the RFDS and complete a rotation in Indigneous health without the retrieval aspect but still get a lot of emergency mixed with general practice, then I would contact Flinders Uni or James Cook and talk to them about electives OR I would contact NTGPE which is the general practice training body for the Northern Territory.

I did a fabulous Rural General Surgery rotation in Alice through Flinders and cannot recommend it highly enough.

 

[elysiumgreen]

I did a fabulous Rural General Surgery rotation in Alice through Flinders and cannot recommend it highly enough.

Yes! I've heard the Alice Springs hospital is amazing. I personally have done a general practice rotation in Maningrida (North Arnhem Land.... this probably means very little to you lol) and it changed my life. It was fantastic.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Yes! Maningrida (North Arnhem Land.... this probably means very little to you lol) and it changed my life. It was fantastic.

I've traveled pretty extensively throughout Australia and still have family there so I do indeed know where you're talking about.

My rotation in Alice was fabulous because it was true general surgery: we did tons of abscesses, gallbladders, orthopedics, gynecology; essentially everything but hearts and brains.