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medical bottleneck
21 Oct 2009 08:11 pmFor whatever reason, this year's first year med cohort is HUGE. And I mean HUGE. I thought our cohort was big (262) but I told myself it was only to be expected since Sydney's probably one of the biggest med schools in Australia...
But this year's first year cohort is 299?!??! That's 37 places more!!! =0=;;;;;;; That could explain why the GAMSAT cut-off dropped 2 points for this year, but next year's cut-off shot up to 63!! =0=;;;;;;;
I'm guessing that it's because the government increases med places by 4 places per year for USyd, but there's a rumour floating around somewhere that USyd capped its places for the last few years because it wanted to implement a number of changes to the course, so I suppose that the lump number of accumulated places were all dispensed with this year? And next year it's back to normal?
It's really crazy looking at these numbers, because 300 is a huge cohort to come out of a uni, and there are 4 med schools in Sydney now and the new schools' first graduates will come out around the same time as we do. I have no idea what UWS intake is, but UNSW should be fairly similar to USyd and Notre Dame would probably be under 100. That still adds up to at least 800 students coming out of Sydney alone and there are schools in ANU, Newcastle and Woollongong ||||||||Orz
It's an absolutely mad time to be increasing cohort sizes when the teaching hospitals can't actually take the amount of graduates as interns. The Iemma government promised guaranteed places for all local graduates up to and including our cohort - which means potentially if you graduate in 2012, you'll be the first doctors to be unemployed =___=;;;;;;; It's even worse for international graduates, who were told last minute this year that they might not get a placement here (although most of them managed to). This is pretty stupid either way because 20% of our cohort are international students, which means a huge squeeze into the employment if they're allowed to stay, but on the other hand it's incredibly irresponsible to turn them away after they've paid for their education here and kick them back to their own country without any sort of employment assurance.
But the bottleneck starts even further up than that. For years now, people have had loiter as a junior doctor because it's sometimes impossible to get into a specialist college, much less a specialist college of choice. While the government has been happily pouring money into increasing medical student places, for god knows why, there are little increases in specialist college placements, and now the health system is saturated with junior doctors without actually addressing the shortage in certain specialties.
I'm sure people are aware of it in the news now how screwed up our health system is, even if no one can pin down exactly where it's screwed up. The media is feasting with glee on every mistaken step taken by anyone in health. Reviews and inquiries and investigations all rail against various inadequacies, and they all seem to agree that the system needs an overhaul, not that half-hearted patchwork repairs job that's been going on for the past decades. The medical technology has moved on, the Australian population has changed, and in 20 years time we'll be dealing with a population heavily represented by people who are old - and most likely to have chronic illnesses. We're told a few weeks ago that the NSW government already spends 40% of its budget on health. 40%!!!! Wait until the baby boomers move into their pension years and everyone starts having heart disease or kidney failures or manageable cancers or arthritis or other forms of chronic pain!
The situation's been getting something almost akin to the climate change treatment. Everyone's playing the doomsayer, while the government continues to make hand-waving amendments. It's said that we would never get a proper overhaul on the health system because no political party prepares for staying in power long enough to reap the benefits of such an overhaul. So just remember the next time you wait impatiently for your appointment...the doctors are as unhappy as you are, if not more =P
But this year's first year cohort is 299?!??! That's 37 places more!!! =0=;;;;;;; That could explain why the GAMSAT cut-off dropped 2 points for this year, but next year's cut-off shot up to 63!! =0=;;;;;;;
I'm guessing that it's because the government increases med places by 4 places per year for USyd, but there's a rumour floating around somewhere that USyd capped its places for the last few years because it wanted to implement a number of changes to the course, so I suppose that the lump number of accumulated places were all dispensed with this year? And next year it's back to normal?
It's really crazy looking at these numbers, because 300 is a huge cohort to come out of a uni, and there are 4 med schools in Sydney now and the new schools' first graduates will come out around the same time as we do. I have no idea what UWS intake is, but UNSW should be fairly similar to USyd and Notre Dame would probably be under 100. That still adds up to at least 800 students coming out of Sydney alone and there are schools in ANU, Newcastle and Woollongong ||||||||Orz
It's an absolutely mad time to be increasing cohort sizes when the teaching hospitals can't actually take the amount of graduates as interns. The Iemma government promised guaranteed places for all local graduates up to and including our cohort - which means potentially if you graduate in 2012, you'll be the first doctors to be unemployed =___=;;;;;;; It's even worse for international graduates, who were told last minute this year that they might not get a placement here (although most of them managed to). This is pretty stupid either way because 20% of our cohort are international students, which means a huge squeeze into the employment if they're allowed to stay, but on the other hand it's incredibly irresponsible to turn them away after they've paid for their education here and kick them back to their own country without any sort of employment assurance.
But the bottleneck starts even further up than that. For years now, people have had loiter as a junior doctor because it's sometimes impossible to get into a specialist college, much less a specialist college of choice. While the government has been happily pouring money into increasing medical student places, for god knows why, there are little increases in specialist college placements, and now the health system is saturated with junior doctors without actually addressing the shortage in certain specialties.
I'm sure people are aware of it in the news now how screwed up our health system is, even if no one can pin down exactly where it's screwed up. The media is feasting with glee on every mistaken step taken by anyone in health. Reviews and inquiries and investigations all rail against various inadequacies, and they all seem to agree that the system needs an overhaul, not that half-hearted patchwork repairs job that's been going on for the past decades. The medical technology has moved on, the Australian population has changed, and in 20 years time we'll be dealing with a population heavily represented by people who are old - and most likely to have chronic illnesses. We're told a few weeks ago that the NSW government already spends 40% of its budget on health. 40%!!!! Wait until the baby boomers move into their pension years and everyone starts having heart disease or kidney failures or manageable cancers or arthritis or other forms of chronic pain!
The situation's been getting something almost akin to the climate change treatment. Everyone's playing the doomsayer, while the government continues to make hand-waving amendments. It's said that we would never get a proper overhaul on the health system because no political party prepares for staying in power long enough to reap the benefits of such an overhaul. So just remember the next time you wait impatiently for your appointment...the doctors are as unhappy as you are, if not more =P
