Hospital Preferences

It’s approaching the season. Hospital preference season. If you’re graduating this year, the selection of hospital preferences will be, in many ways, your first act of true professional, autonomous decision making. It also marks the beginning of the inevitable diaspora of your medical school class. As much you may try to resist it, things will never be the same again. You should look forward to your choice of workplace as an exciting opportunity, and when making it, focus on the things that at the end each day will keep you as happy as can be.

As any intern you ask now would tell you, although exciting at first, internship can be suffocating. You will inevitably start to wonder what you used to do on Saturdays, when you last felt “fresh”, and what happened to the hobbies you once had. Your choice of hospital will have a large bearing on your overall experience. Some things to consider when making your choice:

1.    Housing

a.    Where do you want to live?
b.    How far are you willing to travel to work?
c.    How expensive will it be to live how you want? (By yourself, with others, in a house/apartment etc)
d.    Will your friends and/or family be close by? (Is this a good thing?)

2.    Hospital

a.    Big or small?
b.    Do you want to be on big medical teams with multiple registrars, residents and interns, or would you like to work more closely in a smaller team?
c.    Where does the hospital send people? Will you spend most of the year nowhere near your hospital of choice?

3.    Having a life

a.    What are your hobbies, and will where you work affect them?
b.    Do you have other special interests that need you to be somewhere in particular (Hard to surf from Mildura, etc.)?
c.    Do you want to try something completely different (Interstate? Darwin? Perth?)?

These are only some of a long list of considerations you should take into account. I urge you all to think about and give them equal weighting with considerations of your career, rotations and references. Don’t worry; you’ll have plenty of time to worry about training programs in later years.

The reality is internships will be great sometimes, and generally okay for most part, and there will be times when it straight out sucks. Having your friends around you, keeping a life outside the hospital, and being somewhere you actually like will help keep the bad times bearable. Lean on your friends and let them lean on you, and together you’ll get through fine.

For more information on where to choose attend our Mythbusters evening on Victorian Hospitals, 25 May, AMA House, 293 Royal Parade, Parkville. More information here.

Dr Steve Moylan
President, AMA Victoria Doctors in Training Subdivision