Book your place now for the NSW Health / AMA (NSW) / ASMOF (NSW) 2015 Medical Careers Expo at the SMC Conference Centre (66 Goulburn St, Sydney).

The Expo is the place for you to hear from senior doctors; learn practical skills to prepare you for internship; and speak with representatives from Colleges and training organisations about your future career options.

Intern 101 – what your university doesn't teach you

If you want to hear from our doctor-in-training experts this year, make sure you book now.

Developed by last year's JMO of the Year, Dr Sam Roberts, this hour-long lesson will teach you practical skills you will need to know as an intern.

Dr Roberts developed Intern 101 specifically to cover gaps in knowledge needed in day-to-day interning that university courses often don't prepare people for.

Intern 101 sessions are being run from 10am-11am and from 11am-12pm.

This year  three excellent speakers will be talking about a variety of career paths in medicine.

All three are senior doctors with many years' experience and they will be providing you with a great opportunity to benefit from their expertise.

Dr Andrew Pesce is an obstetrician / gynaecologist and a former Federal AMA President.

Prof Brad Frankum is an immunologist, teaches at the School of Medicine at UWS and is the Vice President of AMA (NSW).

Dr Alan Garner is the Chief Medical Officer at Careflight and has worked in areas hit by the Boxing Day tsunami as well as the aftermath of the Bali terror attacks.

Attend the Australian Doctor Live two-day conference on 18-19 July, at the Four Seasons Hotel Sydney, and enjoy a practical and informative program covering a broad range of clinical conditions.

The seminar will feature expert speakers and hands-on workshops and promises to be very relevant for all GPs, GP registrars and medical students. See the full program at www.australiandoctorlive.com.

Very special registration rates are available for medical students - negotiated for you by NSWMSC!

Please contact Francesca Lawrence on 02 8484 0896 or email at [email protected]. 

Don’t miss your chance to attend this great conference!

Doctors have developed a way to screen for cancer with a smartphone. What will you use yours for?

NSWMSC proudly presents an EXCLUSIVE DEAL for medical students, friends and family! Get 20% off smartphone plans from the network with BEST COVERAGE across Australia.
Thanks Telstra!

To claim, call 1300 265 438.

Dates: Saturday, July 18th at 10am or Sunday July 19th at 10am.

Focus groups to be held at the Centre for Values, Ethics and the Law in Medicine, USYD (92-94 Parramatta Road, Camperdown, 2006). 

Focus groups are expected to last no more than 1.5 hours, and will consist of a moderated discussion on the topic with 8 to 15 people. Focus groups will be held at the University of Sydney, Camperdown campus. Alternative locations may be organised if in high demand.

Refreshments will be provided and participants will be reimbursed for travel costs. For more information or to sign up, please contact Roojin Habibi [email protected] or +61 2 9036 3424.


Students will be reimbursed $50 in the form of a grocery voucher for their participation.

Students slam new rural medical school


By Tessa Hoffman, Senior Reporter, Australian Doctor

Medical students have condemned a push for a new medical school in regional NSW, claiming it will fuel a training bottleneck predicted to leave 400 graduates without internships next year. 

The NSW Medical Students' Council says it makes no sense for the Federal Government to consider spending $46 million on a new medical school when current students are missing out on internship and GP training positions. 

Council chair Neel Gobin (pictured) says he expects 120-140 full-fee paying medical students to miss out on internships next year in NSW alone.

The Australian Medical Students' Association is tipping a national figure of 400. 

Given the government had recently promised to fund Curtin University's medical school in WA, which is to open in 2017, it should fix bottlenecks in the system before considering funding the Murray-Darling medical school proposed by Charles Sturt and La Trobe universities, Mr Gobin says. 

"These bottlenecks exist in every state," he said. "Australia needs more doctors, not more medical students." 

The universities say the school will help solve the rural doctor shortage. 

It will have an 80% rural, regional and Indigenous intake, and offer 120 places across campuses at Orange and Wagga Wagga in NSW, and Bendigo in Victoria.  

While the government has not committed funding, the idea is backed by Assistant Minister for Health Senator Fiona Nash. 

Charles Sturt University's secretary and director of corporate affairs, Mark Burdack, who would become the medical school's executive director, rejects the claim the school will exacerbate the internship shortage. 

Mr Burdack says it will only offer places to Commonwealth-­supported students that come with a guaranteed internship.   

"This is a rural medical school for rural students because we're worried about rural workforce," he said.

-------
Article published on 15 June 2015, via Australian Rural Doctor -
http://www.ruraldr.com.au/news/students-slam-new-medical-school
-------

Media Contact: 
Christopher Lemon
0415 387 990
[email protected]

The Report on the National Audit of Applications and Acceptances for Medical Internship and the Late Vacancy Management Process for 2015 Clinical Year  has recently been published and can be accessed on the COAG website.


It contains useful information on the Intern Placement Number (IPN), how the audit process works - both for applications and acceptances, statistics for the 2015 clinical year, CMIs, late vacancy management process  and the 2016 intern recruitment.

Please note that NSWMSC also has a dedicated Internship Information page with helpful information and resources for graduating medical students.

Kamil Wegrecki was a winner of the Tick Borne Diseases Conference Scholarship - he shares his conference experience with all NSW medical students:

Ticks, bacteria and parasites did little to arouse my enthusiasm as I headed to the 3rd Tick Bourne Diseases Conference in Sydney. I was pleasantly surprised by an intellectually stimulating and challenging line-up. The prospect of donning a bow tie proved only to be a minor highlight of the weekend. 

The occasion presented the opportunity to meet health practitioners from around the world, engage with drug representatives, get lots of free stuff, and ultimately learn many perspectives on what proved to be a controversial issue.

That issue was that of Lyme disease. Far from being confined to the cosy borders of America, the controversy has manifestly made its home down under. While Lyme disease is being called an imagined disorder and patients are being referred for psychiatric help, others are claiming for it a place in objective reality. Medical science, as it turns out, is well and truly permeated by politics and ideologies of many colours.

I was also exposed to a new niche of pharmaceutical: “neutriceuticals” or specialized natural extracts designed to boost immune response to infection or promote recovery from its sequelae. As a product of the modern world, I was sceptical of the effect “natural” products are often advertised to have. It seems too obvious to mention that synthetic inventions will always beat food, nutritional support or anything “natural” for that matter. But as a lover of truth, I was compelled to give my view a thorough critique. The “synthetic” drugs we all know and trust are often more natural than we care to think: digoxin is an extract from foxglove (Digitalis purpurea); atropine from the deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); vinca alkaloids from the periwinkle plant (vinca rosea); salicylic acid from the willow tree (Salix alba). There was a bit of sneering from the medical students about the ridiculousness of using “natural” products to treat as serious a condition as Lyme disease. Perhaps a serving of humble pie should have rounded out the catering menu.

It was great to hear from the perspective of doctors working in rural localities, all the way out in Western Australia and as far as New Zealand and San Diego, all places where Lyme disease has well and truly made a home.

Whether everyone should believe in everything that was said at the conference is up for debate, but it certainly is not a topic that ought to be swept under the rug. If I have learnt anything, it’s usually the issue most readily swept under the rug that ought to be given the hearing it deserves, again and again. Why? Because you never know when new evidence might have emerged. I hope medical practitioners will always seek to base their practices in evidence, not tradition. It is conferences like this that continually take us a little step closer.

By Kamil Wegrecki

MBBS at University of Notre Dame, Sydney,  2nd year

Bunfight over push for rural medical school

By Tessa Hoffman, Senior Reporter, Australian Doctor

Medical students have condemned a push for a new medical school in regional NSW, claiming it will fuel a training bottleneck predicted to leave 400 graduates without internships next year.

The NSW Medical Students’ Council says it makes no sense for the Federal Government to consider spending $46 million on a new medical school when students are missing out on internship and GP training positions.

Council chair Neel Gobin says he expects 120-140 full-fee paying medical students to miss out on internships next year in NSW alone. The Australian Medical Students' Association is tipping a national figure of 400.

Given the government had recently promised to fund Curtin University's medical school in WA, which is to open in 2017, it should fix bottlenecks in the system before considering funding the Murray–Darling medical school proposed by Charles Sturt and La Trobe universities, Mr Gobin says.

“We know these bottlenecks exist in every state,” he says.

“Australia needs more doctors, not more medical students.”


The universities are proposing the school as a way to solve the rural doctor shortage.

It would have an 80% rural, regional and Indigenous intake, and offer 120 places across campuses at Orange and Wagga Wagga in NSW, and Bendigo in Victoria. 

While the government has not committed funding, the idea is backed by Assistant Minister for Health Senator Fiona Nash.

Charles Sturt University's secretary and director of corporate affairs, Mark Burdack, who will be the medical school's executive director, rejects the claim the proposed school will exacerbate the intern places shortage.

Mr Burdack says the school will only offer places to Australian Commonwealth-supported students that come with a guaranteed internship.  

He says demand for intern places will peak in 2015 as long as existing medical schools don’t increase places and, by the time students from the proposed school graduated in 2022, more intern places will have been created.

Mr Burdack added that policies geared at addressing the rural doctor shortage had failed and it was time to try something new.

Currently, 75% of students got just four weeks’ exposure to rural medicine, while the remainder spent a year or more training at regional clinical schools.

 But he claimed there was overwhelming evidence that operating medical schools in rural areas was “the only solution to address geographic maldistribution”.

Seventy per cent of final-year medical students at James Cook University indicated interest in working in a rural area, and more than 60% of graduates undertook internships in the bush, he said.

“This is a rural medical school for rural students because we’re worried about rural workforce.”

He said it was a double standard that the Murray–Darling region was being told it couldn't have a medical school when established schools had been allowed to create more than 220 new places — including 149 for international students — in the past few years, and were pushing to expand even further.

-------
Article published on 10 June 2015, via Australian Doctor -
http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/news/latest-news/bunfight-over-push-for-rural-medical-school
-------

Media Contact: 
Christopher Lemon
0415 387 990
[email protected]