I was sent this link today http://www.araratadvertiser.com.au/news/national/national/general/anger-as-medical-graduates-miss-out-on-internships/2573501.aspx.
For over 2 years now I have been saying that time will come when the market will be saturated and doctors will be treated as any other graduates with no guaranteed job. The only problem is that medicine is more complex than any other profession. No internship/housemanship means you cannot practise as a doctor after spending so much money and time(if you are not sponsored)!
Australia was also having shortage of doctors few years ago. The number of medical schools almost doubled over the last 10 years. At least it just doubled and almost 20-30% of their intakes are international students. Their locals also do not go overseas to do medicine. In Malaysia, our medical schools increased from just 4 in 1995 to about 36 in 2012, a whooping 800% increase!! On top of that, we send thousands to do medicine overseas.
Since last year, certain states in Australia have already started to have shortage of internship post. Obviously, citizens and PRs will be given priority. The news below which appeared today is a clear indication that Australia will not guarantee anymore internship post for international students. The door is closing for sure ! The same is happening in UK as well.
So, you say it will NOT happen in Malaysia? …………………… time will tell.
Anger as medical graduates miss out on internships
MEDICAL graduates will be forced interstate or overseas to secure internships next year, potentially costing the state government more than $20 million in lost investment.
Students and universities are angered by the waste and the dire shortage of available positions for junior doctors, which means 146 NSW graduates will miss out on completing their mandatory year of training locally.
A Sydney Medical School review of the true cost of a medical degree found it cost $85,000 a year of study in 2010, with $35,000 of that funded by the state government in the form of in-kind support from the NSW Ministry of Health; health system employees who teach for free; and the use of medical facilities for training.
The state funding also applied to international students, but with internships first offered to local graduates, international graduates were likely to miss out.
Nearly 90 per cent of international student graduates would work in NSW if they could, said the University of Sydney’s medical society president, Zac Turner, potentially filling dire shortages in rural areas.
”Given the cost to Australia in training them, it seems a waste to send them home, and unfair since without that one year internship, they cannot become a registered doctor,” he said.
Sean McIsaacs has applied for internships next year in nearly every state, but said he was preparing to get rejected by all of them. The final-year student from Vancouver said he was unlikely to secure work back home in Canada either, since he would be classified as an international graduate, for who there were few positions.
”This shortage of places is unprecedented,” he said. ”As international students we’ve shown our own initiative to come here as full fee paying students who want to contribute to the Australian workforce, and we were hopeful the government would reach out to aid us.”
The University of Sydney’s international students’ representative, Blaise Wardle, said given Australia was a net importer of doctors, locally trained international students should be valued. ”It seems preposterous to allow this resource to disappear,” Mr Wardle said.
”There would be enough work for them – if only the state government was willing to fund internship positions.”
Last week the Health Education and Training Institute released provisional numbers for medical internships next year, with 894 internship places available for an estimated 1040 NSW graduates -a stand-out year for shortages.
The University of Sydney’s dean of medicine, Bruce Robinson, said international applicants were warned there was no guarantee of an internship.
”But the argument we have been making is that we ought to be getting a return on our investment and not be losing locally-trained graduates interstate or overseas,” Professor Robinson said.
The NSW Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, said the government had no obligation to offer an internship to every applicant.
”As part of the 2011-12 state budget, the NSW government committed new funding of $11.2 million over four years to support the establishment of additional intern training opportunities,” she said. ”However, this is not just a state responsibility; there needs to be an agreement between the Commonwealth, the universities and the state government about providing internships for all medical students.”
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