(dramatic music)
- So, my name's Daniel D'Hotman
and I'm a final year medical student at Monash University.
I currently have about 10 weeks to go in my medical degree
before commencing my job as a doctor
at the Royal Melbourne Hospital next year.
Maybe a little bit about my background.
So, I was born in South Africa
and brought up in Far North Queensland, in Cairns,
and I came down to Monash for Monash University
six years ago.
After my pre-clinical years, I decided to take a year off
to do an honor's year of research
at the University of Oxford,
focusing on bioethics and public policy,
two things I'm very passionate about.
I've always had an interest in the humanities,
and it was amazing to explore
critical issues in philosophy
with some of the best professors in the world.
When I came back to Australia,
I entered the Rural Clinical Training Program at Monash
and did a year out in Mildura
and a year in Bendigo as well,
and had a fantastic time practicing rural medicine
and seeing some of the differences
of applying care in a rural setting
when compared to the city.
I've explored some policy interests
with the Australian Medical Student Association
and the International Federation of Medical Students,
and I've also explored my interest in business
through rolling out of digital IT products
for the Australian government,
as well as completing an internship
with the Boston Consulting Group's
healthcare practice in Sweden,
where we worked to use novel digital health tools
to improve outcomes for diabetic patients
in Ontario, in Canada.
I've come to MedView because of
a passion for education in health,
and a desire to demystify the process of
applying to medical school.
As someone coming from a rural background,
I didn't understand the medical system,
I didn't understand how to apply in the state.
I didn't even think I had a chance of
getting into Monash, and yet,
I was fortunate enough to make my way there
through a combination of luck
and mentors guiding me through the process.
I think that every student should have the right
and opportunity to apply to
whatever medical school they want,
and I believe MedView is the best way
for them to do that, and I'm proud to help MedView
moving forward across Australia and New Zealand.
Medicine as a career is an incredibly rewarding pathway,
both from a professional standpoint
and a personal standpoint.
I think every day you see things
that may be very challenging
and often represent either a very joyous
or a very terrible moment in an individual's life,
and whatever that might be
and whatever that outcome might be,
I think it's a privilege to be a witness to that
and to be able to walk into work every day
and be exposed to those elements of the human experience.
I know many of my colleagues,
I think that's why most people go into medicine
is a desire to help others
and help them through those times,
whether they be a good or a bad period in their life.
Alongside that, medicine is a financially rewarding career,
and I think that's an important fact to recognize.
When someone works so hard,
it's important to be able to provide for your family
and to be able to live a life that
you can do the things that you want to do,
whether it be travel,
whether it be extracurricular activities,
and continuing to live a balanced life
throughout your career is important,
and money certainly helps you do that.
In Australia specifically,
I think the work culture for doctors
is really attractive, and we see
a variety of doctors at the hospital,
including my current registrar,
come over from the United Kingdom,
and my registrar said something to me the other day that,
that in the UK, there are roughly half the doctors
for the amount that we have in Australia,
and I think that has a significant effect on
your ability to work and look after patients
to the full range of your ability,
and you're also paid more as well,
and it is nice to be rewarded for your work,
whilst we don't go into medicine for money.
When we cover, onto the second point of the question,
which was looking at the return on investment for students
interested in Ivy Leagues, or Oxford, or Cambridge,
look, I'm no expert on that process at all.
I've studied medicine in Australia,
but I can say that I think every student is different,
and those are certainly options
that some might like to consider.
From my own experience studying philosophy
and bioethics at Oxford, I loved being in
a multidisciplinary environment
where I'd have to think about complex
philosophical problems every day,
and maybe in a different life I would've done
politics, philosophy, and economics
for the PPE degree at Oxford
if I had known that that was available to me
upon exiting high school.
I have no regrets for going into medicine in Australia,
and it's opened up so many opportunities for me,
whether it be going to the World Health Organization,
speaking in front of ministers of health there,
which I was privileged to do,
or walking across Antarctica
with one of my very close friends
for a nonprofit as a medic.
Those are experiences that were only available to me
as a medical student, but equally,
going to the Ivy Leagues or Oxford and Cambridge
offers different types of experiences,
and weighing up the options,
those options, will be something that every student
will need to go through with their family,
and consider what is right for them
and what is right for their career.
From the perspective of financial cost,
medicine in Australia can be expensive for people,
particularly when you're moving city.
For me, I had to move from
regional Queensland to Melbourne,
and Melbourne is a very expensive city,
much like Sydney, and that was difficult.
I'm fortunate to be in a family where,
between their support and my own individual work,
I was able to support myself,
but it's important to consider
the cost of moving city, and even though
you should be able to put your fees on HECS,
that is still money that you will
have to pay back over time,
and students may do well to consider
whether traveling overseas
might offer an equally interesting opportunity,
and one that they could receive
financial aid for, support for,
and Crimson could certainly help them with their journey.
As I said, just to bring it all together,
every student's journey is different.
Everyone needs to think about
where they want their career to go,
and in the end, all of these options are good ones.
They all open different doors
and they all offer different opportunities.
I think the beauty about a medical career
or the great thing about a medical career
is that there are so many things
you can go into.
You can become a surgeon, intervening
and fixing people in critical situations,
you can become a cardiologist
looking after the complex management
of people's hearts whilst doing
interventional procedures using
interesting new technologies
to cure something in someone's heart
that previously required open heart surgery,
you could become a general practitioner
being the central point of care in someone's life,
looking after someone all the way
from when they're born and throughout
their entire lifespan, as well as
their entire family and their community around them,
you could be a psychiatrist,
someone who helps those people with mental illness
to restore some of their function
and to live happier, healthier lives,
and I think that diversity is really attractive.
Within medicine, you can cater to any personality,
any sort of desire of what you might like to explore.
Different types of medicine involve
more communication with people,
others like pathology or radiology
enable you to pursue excellence
in a very discrete field,
in a very specific field, I should say.
And as an aside, then, maybe you want to explore
interest in research or science,
and to contribute to the pursuit of human advancement
and the pursuit of new medical technologies and new drugs,
and you can do all of that
whilst combining it with a clinical career as well.
Ultimately as well, I think, the role of a doctor,
or the role of all doctors,
are to advocate for the health of their patients,
both in the hospital and in the community,
and maybe in the press as well.
And in addition, I think the role of a doctor
is to be a teacher.
Doctors pass on their knowledge to medical students,
they pass on their knowledge
to members of society and to patients as well,
and to continue to have that sense of leadership
in their community and to advance the community's interest,
and to improve the lives of patients,
that is the joy of being a doctor.
I think for everyone who's considering medicine
and might be on the fence, you know,
it's important to recognize that
medicine isn't always a happy career path
where everything goes well.
There are times when things don't go well.
One story that comes to mind is
a time when I was working in an emergency department
and a man came in with some diarrhea
and he thought he might've had food poisoning,
and we investigated things, and a few hours later,
after a variety of tests and procedures,
it turned out that he actually had end stage cancer,
and this was something that he wasn't aware of.
And it came down to myself, as well as the registrar,
to go and tell him that news,
along with his wife, who was there.
This man had a young daughter who was 11
and another one who was 16,
and you know, he'd come in
thinking he had food poisoning
and was wanting some antibiotics,
and we had to tell him that, actually,
you're in the terminal stages of cancer,
and you know, you may not have
a very long time to live,
and I think delivering that news
was an incredibly moving and difficult experience.
Of course, it's nothing in comparison
to what he must have felt like,
but it was really challenging
to sit down with the registrar
and deliver this news that was about to completely overturn
the whole family's life,
and throw their plans into chaos,
and also to tell a mother and two young children
that their father, you know,
may not be with them for very long.
But overall, you know, I was with him
for that whole period of time,
from the initial point where I had a conversation
to the time in which we told him this news,
and I think that he appreciated
that he had someone there who understood,
and had talked to him, and had taken the time
to understand where he was coming from and his symptoms,
and you know, we shared something
really special that day.
While I will never understand what it must have been like
for him to feel that, I was witness to,
I did witness a very challenging moment,
and something that I think is profoundly human,
and that really speaks, to go back to medicine
and the career as a doctor,
of the diversity in the experience of a doctor.
Many days, you'll be doing paperwork,
and many days you'll be doing things
that you might not think are incredibly fun,
but then, you know, every now and again,
moments like that pop up where you think,
wow, this is a really unique career
where I'm being exposed to things
that I could never have dreamed of,
and where I feel really privileged
to be in that situation.
And I think that's why, if that is something
that appeals to you, to be challenged
and to be pushed to help people
in the good times and the bad,
I would highly recommend you do medicine
because there is no career that is more rewarding
when it comes to such experiences.
Look, I think applying for medical school
can be a really daunting process,
particularly when you go to a school
that might not have the best career support,
or might not have councilors
that are particularly familiar with
applying to medical school,
particularly medical schools
that are outside of that city.
And it is complex in some ways.
You have the UMAT test, you have interviews,
you obviously have your school grades,
which are very important,
as well as extracurricular involvement
and looking to show that you are
really passionate about pursuing medicine as a career path.
That process is very daunting
when you're trying to consider
how to balance a social life
with your high school marks,
and also looking to play a sport,
or perhaps debating, or playing music as well,
and for me, it's really important
that we try to support students as much as possible
when they're going along that journey,
and also trying to standardize and equalize
the access to information and services
when it comes to medical school consulting.
For too long, I think, some of the most prestigious schools
in Sydney and Melbourne have been able
to dominate this process, because for them,
the career councilors have got many students
into medical school before, and they understand
what it takes or what students
need to do to guarantee success.
And look, there's nothing wrong with that,
and actually, I think it's fantastic
that those students have support,
but we wanna make sure that every student
who wants to be a doctor can maximize
their chances of success and ultimately
fulfill their dream of caring for people.
Now, MedView can really help in demystifying
the process of medical school admissions,
and assisting every student along their journey,
wherever that may be.
It's looking at making sure
that you're able to enhance the strengths that you have
at particular areas of the admission process,
as well as working on any particular weaknesses.
As an example, for myself, personally,
I was really week at section three on the UMAT.
I enjoyed section one and two,
I found it quite interesting to read
long passages of text,
and I was generally able to pick out the right answer,
but for section three, I just had no idea
what the right answer was, and as a result,
I performed really poorly in the test on the day.
Ultimately, coming to MedView, though,
I've seen that section three is interestingly
the section that students can improve most on,
and I know that there are some students out there
that could really do with the support
of having the best UMAT tutors and mentors
to help them through the process,
and similarly, to help them through
any part of the admissions process,
whether it be interviews, or whether it be scholarships,
or whether it be extracurricular consulting.
So, I just think that every student's journey is different,
and having support really helps you
to maximize your chances of success,
and will put you on a journey
towards your dream of being a doctor.