Does anyone know how the international students are fairing for internship this year?
How are the international students fairing for internship this year?
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No.
Individual states may give preliminary numbers, but they won't be collated until some group like AMSA does this at the end of the year. Numbers won't be meaningful (if ever, depends on who's asking what question and how they report the answers) until January at the least, and not definitive until/unless int'ls are surveyed after N. American matches later next year. It would appear that AMSA never followed up to survey int'ls after this year's, so once again a great opportunity lost.
Of course, if anyone has prelim numbers for any states (WA reported something like 35 haven't gotten a job offer through its state ballot), they should post them for ****s and giggles. State spots will continue to open up sporadically between now and January. Federal CMI applications closed yesterday. Relevant numbers there will be how many spots (of the max 100) were funded, how many applicants, and how many turn down an offer.
Individual states may give preliminary numbers, but they won't be collated until some group like AMSA does this at the end of the year. Numbers won't be meaningful (if ever, depends on who's asking what question and how they report the answers) until January at the least, and not definitive until/unless int'ls are surveyed after N. American matches later next year. It would appear that AMSA never followed up to survey int'ls after this year's, so once again a great opportunity lost.
Of course, if anyone has prelim numbers for any states (WA reported something like 35 haven't gotten a job offer through its state ballot), they should post them for ****s and giggles. State spots will continue to open up sporadically between now and January. Federal CMI applications closed yesterday. Relevant numbers there will be how many spots (of the max 100) were funded, how many applicants, and how many turn down an offer.
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I would never rely on numbers alone.
I'd been involved in trying to survey international med students and grads in the past or looking into it for various societies. AMSA currently relies on students voluntarily responding. There's massive volunteer bias and issues with response rates. AMA did one on students - asking how many are seeking internship in Australia, the response was over 70% said they were. however, other countries, such as a Canada ran a similar survey asking how many Canadians studying abroad intend to apply for jobs back home - something 70-80% of respondents said they had such intentions. Everyone is desperate jobs after forking up to 300k or so for their degrees. The incentive to respond to surveys is generally to be heard and to get a job essentially. Not to mention - too few students ever respond to those surveys and those that do are the ones without positions. On the side, most students at my med school had never even heard of AMSA, so they would almost certainly not been aware of any surveys. It's not very representative. It would have been more ideal had AMSA had the ability to say - survey the med schools about their grad numbers and the hospitals that hire the interns. Rather than say rely on only volunteer surveys. (That process would also be easier said than done)
CMIs aren't offered until November-early December (months after state internship positions are first rolled out in July), so it muddles up the numbers further, as up to 80-100 positions are created by that program. And not everyone who applies for a state internship is that committed to staying in Australia such that they will apply for a CMI. State internships have no strings attached. CMIs have a return of service of a year (which isn't much really) and pay-back clause of up to 140k (i.e. should you get a job overseas and leave internship part way).
Just to make things more confusing, hospitals sometimes offer jobs under the table. So just because some candidates don't get offers by the state internship campaigns in July (when all domestics do), doesn't mean some internationals don't get hired afterwards. It's a small number, but grads have been hired even after internships have started in January, it does mean that they finish internship later than others as they must finish up to a year of internship training prior to getting registration. Of course this is case-by-case basis.
That said, the fact that we haven't seen reports of say..hundreds of grads missing out on positions is a 'good' thing.
That hasn't happened since 2012 I think. They're probably fairing well because the Commonwealth Medical Internships are still being offered to cover the state internship short falls.
Generally - it's not a walk in the park to obtain an internship and it's going to get harder and harder. This is because the class sizes of internationals are increasing every year, or other Australian med schools are beginning to recruit internationals. And in one case - we're getting a new med school now, in WA (Curtin) that is going to take in international students too, first class is incoming for 2017. Final year students generally put in effort to get them, dependent on what state or med school they grad from. You can look at a statistic, but you wouldn't know how much blood, sweat and tears went in. Students and med school applicants seem to rarely look beyond the internship year. I'm finishing up mine now and I worry about my future and competitiveness for vocational training in the years to come.
Not the greatest resource but - http://www.theage.com.au/business/w...id-calls-to-halt-imports-20170103-gtle76.html
I'd been involved in trying to survey international med students and grads in the past or looking into it for various societies. AMSA currently relies on students voluntarily responding. There's massive volunteer bias and issues with response rates. AMA did one on students - asking how many are seeking internship in Australia, the response was over 70% said they were. however, other countries, such as a Canada ran a similar survey asking how many Canadians studying abroad intend to apply for jobs back home - something 70-80% of respondents said they had such intentions. Everyone is desperate jobs after forking up to 300k or so for their degrees. The incentive to respond to surveys is generally to be heard and to get a job essentially. Not to mention - too few students ever respond to those surveys and those that do are the ones without positions. On the side, most students at my med school had never even heard of AMSA, so they would almost certainly not been aware of any surveys. It's not very representative. It would have been more ideal had AMSA had the ability to say - survey the med schools about their grad numbers and the hospitals that hire the interns. Rather than say rely on only volunteer surveys. (That process would also be easier said than done)
CMIs aren't offered until November-early December (months after state internship positions are first rolled out in July), so it muddles up the numbers further, as up to 80-100 positions are created by that program. And not everyone who applies for a state internship is that committed to staying in Australia such that they will apply for a CMI. State internships have no strings attached. CMIs have a return of service of a year (which isn't much really) and pay-back clause of up to 140k (i.e. should you get a job overseas and leave internship part way).
Just to make things more confusing, hospitals sometimes offer jobs under the table. So just because some candidates don't get offers by the state internship campaigns in July (when all domestics do), doesn't mean some internationals don't get hired afterwards. It's a small number, but grads have been hired even after internships have started in January, it does mean that they finish internship later than others as they must finish up to a year of internship training prior to getting registration. Of course this is case-by-case basis.
That said, the fact that we haven't seen reports of say..hundreds of grads missing out on positions is a 'good' thing.
That hasn't happened since 2012 I think. They're probably fairing well because the Commonwealth Medical Internships are still being offered to cover the state internship short falls.
Generally - it's not a walk in the park to obtain an internship and it's going to get harder and harder. This is because the class sizes of internationals are increasing every year, or other Australian med schools are beginning to recruit internationals. And in one case - we're getting a new med school now, in WA (Curtin) that is going to take in international students too, first class is incoming for 2017. Final year students generally put in effort to get them, dependent on what state or med school they grad from. You can look at a statistic, but you wouldn't know how much blood, sweat and tears went in. Students and med school applicants seem to rarely look beyond the internship year. I'm finishing up mine now and I worry about my future and competitiveness for vocational training in the years to come.
Not the greatest resource but - http://www.theage.com.au/business/w...id-calls-to-halt-imports-20170103-gtle76.html
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Great post, with one caveat: in 2012 there was a lot of 'talk' about hundreds of (international) students not getting jobs, but never any evidence of it (while health depts in the states that would be most affected reporting that they didn't know of any grads who couldn't get a job). It's just that premature and meaningless surveys were taken more at face value that year, then more people starting wising up to the political games (such as claims in August for jobs the following year, before CMI and before under-the-table offers, and before overseas [e.g., N. American] residency matches).
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Haha, yea I shouldn't have said 'screw numbers' then quoted them myself.
It was more than hot air that year though, that exception to my terrible generalization. 2012 was the first year there was a difference between number of grads applying for state internships and actual numbers of state internships to offer them by July. (a difference by about 182 - this was not an estimate it was the number calculated by government on audit) That said - a good number of applicants for state internships each year have no genuine interest in remaining in Australia, and that number actually goes up every year.
2012 was also the year the CMIs first were introduced and brought in (after a good deal of lobbying and press). Kicking in very late that year (and now every year), up to a month before internship started. It wasn't premature necessarily. Because a good chunk of people still took up those CMIs - up to 75, I think it was back then (the requirement to CMIs to this day is that you must not have turned down a state offer - this is the last resort). That was the number that started internship on those contracts by January (not applied then bellied up). The government actually wondered why not all 182 applied for a CMI when they became available (either was there was no actual interest in staying in Australia, or between July to December - a few found state positions in the interim).
It was definitely a lot of politics involved and spinning of facts, but it resulted in the creation the CMI, for which we're all eternally thankful for. Ethically it was a bit muddled, to be sure. The government was also sold on creating them because the reps told them internationals were/are willing to go rural and be rural generalists essentially. Helping out with the maldistribution. It also would have been a disaster to the med schools with recruiting full-fee paying international students in the future (and I don't agree with how many internationals some schools take in, it's gone past ridiculous ).
I think the system works...well, to a degree in this rather broken system of medical training. As in, final years apply for state internship, and then the CMI kicks in near the end, mopping up anyone left behind. It's speaks more than surveys if nearly 100 each year still start the intern year on a CMI. I haven't heard of any reports of eligible students not getting a position after the CMI - if they made the increasingly stressful effort that is.
(Apart from 9 this year at UWA, but have no idea if they were actually ineligible by the time of start internship. Each year there are actually dozens of students who are ineligible for CMI - it's a minority group, but they still exist. It just..usually means they end up waiting up to a full year more before finding employment somewhere in the world. For instance the Malaysian International medical school students only in Australia for 2 years don't qualify, or the UQ ochsner students also only around for 2 years in their degrees, people who failed something and got kept behind etc).
Not saying it will happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if even CMIs can't sustain things for many more years. There's already an oversupply predicted by 2030 by 7000 doctors. Not that the numbers are impressive, being numbers again, but the fact that the government takes it seriously (reportedly) is the not-so-great part. http://www.smh.com.au/business/work...id-calls-to-halt-imports-20170103-gtle76.html
It was more than hot air that year though, that exception to my terrible generalization. 2012 was the first year there was a difference between number of grads applying for state internships and actual numbers of state internships to offer them by July. (a difference by about 182 - this was not an estimate it was the number calculated by government on audit) That said - a good number of applicants for state internships each year have no genuine interest in remaining in Australia, and that number actually goes up every year.
2012 was also the year the CMIs first were introduced and brought in (after a good deal of lobbying and press). Kicking in very late that year (and now every year), up to a month before internship started. It wasn't premature necessarily. Because a good chunk of people still took up those CMIs - up to 75, I think it was back then (the requirement to CMIs to this day is that you must not have turned down a state offer - this is the last resort). That was the number that started internship on those contracts by January (not applied then bellied up). The government actually wondered why not all 182 applied for a CMI when they became available (either was there was no actual interest in staying in Australia, or between July to December - a few found state positions in the interim).
It was definitely a lot of politics involved and spinning of facts, but it resulted in the creation the CMI, for which we're all eternally thankful for. Ethically it was a bit muddled, to be sure. The government was also sold on creating them because the reps told them internationals were/are willing to go rural and be rural generalists essentially. Helping out with the maldistribution. It also would have been a disaster to the med schools with recruiting full-fee paying international students in the future (and I don't agree with how many internationals some schools take in, it's gone past ridiculous ).
I think the system works...well, to a degree in this rather broken system of medical training. As in, final years apply for state internship, and then the CMI kicks in near the end, mopping up anyone left behind. It's speaks more than surveys if nearly 100 each year still start the intern year on a CMI. I haven't heard of any reports of eligible students not getting a position after the CMI - if they made the increasingly stressful effort that is.
(Apart from 9 this year at UWA, but have no idea if they were actually ineligible by the time of start internship. Each year there are actually dozens of students who are ineligible for CMI - it's a minority group, but they still exist. It just..usually means they end up waiting up to a full year more before finding employment somewhere in the world. For instance the Malaysian International medical school students only in Australia for 2 years don't qualify, or the UQ ochsner students also only around for 2 years in their degrees, people who failed something and got kept behind etc).
Not saying it will happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if even CMIs can't sustain things for many more years. There's already an oversupply predicted by 2030 by 7000 doctors. Not that the numbers are impressive, being numbers again, but the fact that the government takes it seriously (reportedly) is the not-so-great part. http://www.smh.com.au/business/work...id-calls-to-halt-imports-20170103-gtle76.html
