Hello. The field of surgery is one of the most
popular specialty choices amongst many doctors around the world.
And in this video, I'm going to answer the question,
how hard or how competitive is it to become a surgeon in Australia?
Hi there, I'm Dr. Anthony Llewellyn here to help you with all the best advice and information
about the medical careers process right here in Australia.
Now I have a bunch of resources to help other doctors in their career process.
And for anyone watching this video who is thinking of applying for surgical training
in Australia, I do have some free training that will specifically help you
with the interview process link in the description below.
So we're here to answer the question,
how hard or how competitive is surgery in Australia?
And I'm not going to hold you in any more suspense here.
I can tell you that if you're currently thinking about a career in surgery,
let's say you are just about to finish high school in Australia,
then you have less than a one in 100 chance of becoming a surgeon.
So to explain that, I'm going to quickly cover a few points here.
One, the reasons why you might want to become a surgeon in Australia.
Two, what the statistics tell us about how
hard the process is, including how I come up with my one and 100 statistics.
And three, finally,
some things you may want to consider that may impose some barriers.
If you're thinking about embarking
on a surgical career in the future video, I hope to go into more depth about
the process, including the nine subspecialties of surgery.
But if you're wanting more information
after watching this video, I will link to a blog post that I have
done on the topic, which does give you additional info,
particularly on the process and those nine subspecialties.
But for now, let's dive in.
So why become a surgeon?
Well, there's no doubt that becoming
a surgeon can be truly a rewarding part of medicine.
Learning how to operate successfully on the human body requires great skill
and intellect and can often lead to immediate improvements for your patients.
And of course, at times can literally be lifesaving.
There's also a lot of prestige that comes
with being a surgeon, and surgeons are often the innovators in health.
Surgery is always changing and improving
over time, whether that just be refining and improving on an existing operation or
designing a completely new and safer way to operate.
Surgeons can even operate now remotely
on patients by using the Internet and robotic technology.
Another reason you may want to become a surgeon is that surgeons do derive
the biggest income out of all medical practitioners traditionally.
In fact, according to the Australian Tax Office,
surgeons as an occupational group regularly top the list of income earners
in Australia, earning on average around $394,000 Australian dollars of taxable income per
year, beating out all other medical professional groups such as anaesthetists,
physicians and psychiatrists like me, as well as all other occupations,
including financial dealers, judges and even CEOs.
So how does it become a surgeon in Australia?
Well, to answer this question, I'm primarily going to look at what you
have to do as a doctor to be able to train as a surgeon.
Now obviously, it goes without saying that training as a surgeon is also difficult.
There are often a lot of hours required
to perform clinical work, a requirement to log,
a certain amount of successful operations, a knowledge and learning skills component,
and of course, there are examinations that you must pass to complete your
fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.
But first you have to actually get into training.
Getting into training in itself is not easy and there are a lot of prerequisites
that you must fulfil in order to simply apply to train as a surgeon in Australia,
the first of which is that you must be a doctor.
So in order to train as a surgeon, you need to complete a medical degree.
Now, depending on which source you are
looking at, gaining entry into a medical school course in Australia is either
the most difficult or one of the most difficult courses to get into.
According to one particular research article I found looking at applicant
and acceptance rates for three established medical schools in Australia.
Only 5% of the applicants in any one year received an offer of a place in a medical
school programme and of course, you must then accept that offer
and complete your degree, which not all medical students do.
Now, assuming you have graduated
from medical school, you still can't simply go into surgical training.
Unlike some other countries in the world where you can apply for specialty training
in medical school or at the end of medical school.
In Australia there is a provisional period
of generalised training which you must complete called the internship.
So you need to complete your internship, which will make you eligible to gain
what's called general registration as a doctor in Australia.
Technically, at this stage, you may in fact be eligible to apply
for selection into surgical training because an essential requirement to apply
for training, in fact for any College in Australia is general registration.
However, there are a number of other essential requirements that will likely
mean that you have to wait at least another year or two.
It is.
At this point we should introduce you to the Royal Australasian College
of Surgeons, the Royal Australasian College
of Surgeons, or RACS, as it is often friendly, known as
is the specialty medical College in Australia and New Zealand that oversees
both qualified surgeons and surgical training.
RACS itself is made up of a number
of specialty training groups which are also represented by society,
so applications for surgical training in Australia and New Zealand are generally
conducted both by RACS as well as the respective society.
There are nine recognised surgical
specialties in Australia which are each represented by society.
These are General Surgery, Orthopaedics,
Urology Cardiothoracic Surgery, Neurosurgery, Otolaryngology and Head
and Neck Surgery, sometimes referred to as Ear, Nose and Throat,
Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Vascular Surgery and Paediatric Surgery.
Most of these specialty are covered by one
society across Australia and New Zealand, but a few, such as Orthopaedics,
have separate societies between the two countries.
Surgical training is referred to as
SET Training and SET stands for Surgical Education Training and you
can apply once a year for SET training in any of the above listed specialties
and you can apply for more than one if you like.
Now, there are certain general requirements you have to meet in order
to apply, as well as requirements which are specific to each specialty.
So for the general requirements,
the first one we've already mentioned, you must have your general registration.
This is one of the reasons why
international medical graduates can't just apply for surgical training in society.
They also have to go through the process of obtaining general registration before
they're allowed to apply for any particular training scheme,
whether it be with the College of Surgeons or another one.
Now the second requirement, RACS,
is that you must be either an Australian citizen or permanent resident.
So this is going to preclude you if you
are on a visa and say an instantial student who's done the medical degree
in Australia or an IMG doctor who's gone through the recognition process.
In addition to these prerequisites, you also need to complete a couple of RACS
online training modules for things like hand hygiene as well as Operating
with Respect, which is a programme to teach trainees
about well being and anti bullying programmes run by RACS.
Finally, you must also set the RACS General Surgical Science
Examination, the GSSE, which is an exam covering anatomy,
pathology and physiology as it relates to surgical practise so far.
Well then there are the specific
requirements for each Set training programme.
Now these generally complies you having to obtain a certain amount of experience
in certain surgical areas, as well as some competencies and some basic procedures.
Now I'm not going to go through all nine specialties in this video.
As I said, I've actually done a more extended article about this on my website.
But as an example, in order to just apply
for cardiothoracic training on top of all those general requirements I mentioned,
you will need to have had at least two surgical terms of 20 weeks total in any
surgical specialty in the last six years, plus a minimum ten weeks specific rotation
cardiothoracic surgery as well as be able to demonstrate competency
for the procedural skills of inserting a chest drain and harvesting a long
satinous vein and harvesting a radial Archer.
So now that you've established your
eligibility to apply, what are your actual chances?
Again, I'm not going to go through
the specific details of the activation process in this video.
For every specialty, I will hopefully do that in a later video.
And as I said, there's more information on the related blog post.
But generally speaking,
the application and selection process for Set training involves a few things.
Firstly, you have to submit an application
form with a CV or career profile and then this is rated and ranked by the College.
You also have to submit a number of referees who are checked,
contacted and the results of these referee cheques are also rated and ranked.
Now, your application score and referee score will normally be used to determine
whether you progress to the interview round.
Interview phase generally has the highest
weight of the three components and either solely determines the outcome or is
combined with your application and referee scores for the final score.
Application numbers and numbers of post vary considerably across the spectrum.
For example, in 2020 there were 323 applicants for general surgical training,
with 108 offered a post to commence training in 2021 in Australia versus
there were no interviews offered for cardiothoracic in 2020,
and the next smallest programme was paediatric surgery,
with 21 applicants and three offers in 2020 for the 2021 training programme.
Overall, for the year 2020, which is the most recent data available
on the RACS website, there were 894 applicants,
translating into 244 successful offers across the nine step training programmes.
That's about a 27% or one in four champ.
The Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
helpfully provide six years of data and selection outcomes.
Now, across six years,
there were 340 applicants for neurosurgical training for 63
appointments, which is a one in five ratio.
So putting these figures together, you can see how I was able to estimate
that if you are currently in high school in Australia and were considering a future
career as a surgeon, you have a roughly one in 100 chance statistically.
Now, you have to bear in mind that doesn't
necessarily take into account that you can apply more than once,
so your chances probably do improve a little bit more than that now.
Other things to bear in mind Obviously,
a range of factors will affect your prospects of a surgical career
and there are certainly a lot of things that you can do to boost your prospects
of a getting into medical school and B getting into surgical training.
Some of these things that you can do require more time, and they include things
like gaining what's called unaccredited experience in surgical terms,
as well as undertaking research or high degree programmes relevant to surgery.
And this is why most prospective Set
trainees will generally wait only until they feel they have maximised
the number of points that they can get on their application score and accumulate
a good and large set of referees before applying for training.
And there's a reason for that is that you
don't want to apply when you know that other doctors are just going
to outrank you on their application score alone.
And prospective Set trainees will also
generally wait a few years to apply because it costs money to apply.
The current cost for registering to apply for Set training is $595 Australian
and you also have to pass the GSSE exam which currently cost $4,145 Australian.
Now on top of this, each Set programme generally charges
somewhere between $$800 to $900 Australian for the application process.
And finally another reason folks defer applying is that for most Set training
programmes there is actually a maximum number of times that you can apply.
This is generally either three or four times.
So again it's no point applying if you
know that you're not going to get in that year.
Finally, another thing to consider is that because the process is so competitive
most applicants will dedicate a considerable amount of time and perhaps
also spend money on preparing for the interviews by practising interview
questions and employing an interview coach like myself.
So there you have it.
Becoming a surgeon in Australia is a highly competitive process.
Remember if you're thinking of appearing for Set interviews then I do have some
free training for you available via my website link in the description below.
I will also leave some links in the description to my coaching programmes.
If you're considering getting some help
please subscribe like share and everything else and I will see you in another video.