Just like that...

What a time to be alive!

The busiest time of the year crept up on me so quickly. Just like that. I remember last years’ cohort saying that your final year gets overwhelming towards the middle to the end of the year. Initially, I thought it was exaggerated and perhaps it wasn’t that overwhelming, but damn, I was completely wrong--they weren’t playing. In the last couple of months, I’ve had to finalise my internship applications for three states, complete my MD research and public health report—all within a very short period of time. Whilst also continuing to go on my rotations!

The internship applications were definitely a long process, and I like to compare it to the NBA draft. Just like the NBA draft, teams will rank prospective players and with their picks, select who they want to play for them, analogous to this, health services select who they would like to work with them. Prospective medical students fill out applications for various health services in the state they want to start their junior doctor career in, and health services, with their elusive and nebulous way of ranking students, will rank prospective medical students. At the end of the day, the health services will offer you jobs for you to complete your internship year. So, for me, in a similar vein to Lebron James taking his talents to South Beach, Florida in his famous move to Miami Heat, I will be taking my talents to Western Health and going back to practice in the Western suburbs of Melbourne- where I spent the formative years of the life. All my younger siblings were born at Western Health, and so the connection to this health service was already sowed in me. My applications for the other state led to me being offered Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane and the Royal Prince Alfred in Sydney. Unfortunately, you can only hold one medical internship position in Australia, and for numerous reasons, I decided on Western Health. I made sure to make this clear in my application that my connection to Western Health is one of community, and especially the diversity of the western suburbs, which will be present in the patient load that comes into Western Health. I wanted to be a part of that.

In the midst of all this, I’ve had placements in oncology, emergency medicine, anaesthesia, and ICU. All of them having their key moments. From stitching a thumb laceration in ED, to inserting a breathing tube in anaesthesia, fourth year has illustrated the amalgamation of different skills and learnings over the last four years. Every day, I’m feeling more and more like a doctor. I know there is still so much learning to do and that comes from being a junior doctor. Things are starting to make some sense and my clinical acumen is improving immensely. It’s going to be a steep learning curve going into internship year; however, I look forward to the challenge.

I also finished my final medical school exams recently! For the first time in two years, we had our OSCEs return. Although at times you can feel your heart wanting to betray you and jump out of your chest. I actually like doing OSCEs. It’s the closest assessment that demonstrates the kind of environment that doctors may face. For those that do not know, OSCEs are simulated stations to assess different aspects of clinical and communications skills, as a doctor. There were nine stations, ranging from assessment in history taking to performing examinations, and interpreting tests. I felt confident going into the stations, definitely helped by my consistent study throughout the year in OSCEs style prompts. A few stations I was unsure about, but there’s always one like that in the OSCEs. At the end of the day, they assessors want to make sure that they are graduating safe medical students, so keeping that at the forefront going into the stations helps. Now just to wait for AHPRA to accept my registration and I’ll be qualified!

In other news, I was also the podcast “30 by 30”, talking about my experience on growing up in the Western suburbs of Melbourne, and how that influenced my South Sudanese-Australia identity. You can check it out here:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1e0GwuLaY2I6CY0DN0OkgJ

Continue to eat those pancakes on a daily basis and look out for the next post—I’ve got some things in the pipeline!