I do understand this perspective, on Oz maybe being the best place to be a physician due to the philosophy of life behind the profession there. I must say I am open to the idea of staying, however I am looking to get back here - to Montreal eventually. That might change, but leaving all my family here with the intent of never coming back is not where I am at personally. I assume you would relate to that as I haven't even left yet.
In general, I am prepared and want to work a great deal - I know what hard work is all about as I've worked in construction for about 10 years off and on. But like I said above - I also want to be able to spend a lot of time with my family once I do have children. You seem to be quite sure, and I've seen this in many other resources, that Australia caters to this humane lifestyle... that is great to hear. I am also wondering if this humane lifestyle is possible here in Canada - I've got conflicting answers about this. Pehaps in pediatrics or in certain specialities it is possible.
Another point is that most of these younger medical students have never worked a day in their life, so their idea of hard work is relative to summers off... I've yet to get a clear answer about the workload and responsibilities of practicing medicine in Canada. I will look more into it - however the base idea I have heard over and over again is that you can choose to work the way you want to. This seems vague to me in relation to other advice I've gotten. It is difficult to get a proper perspective from a distance. Overall it does seem that there is a consensus that Australia is a more humane place to work - I would think that patients are treated better there then...
Redlan,
Please don't take this the wrong way, but working construction even with a 14 hour shift in no way compares to being a doctor. I've done some construction work to help pay for school in my summers off, and let me tell you when you're done work you are done. In medicine you are constantly forced to think, sometimes on your feet because there isn't always a black and white answer. Most of the time you are required to multitask as there can be 4-5 things happening simultaneously that require your attention.
Then there's the added stress of knowing that every little decision you make could result in someone's death. Believe me, I've seen a couple of close calls where the doctor in question just wasn't thinking and it nearly resulted in someone's death. That's the problem, because you don't only have yourself to worry about but your patients and possibly your career. There is a reason why doctors get paid so much money, it's because the job is stressful. Until you actually start working in this profession you can really have no idea. Job shadowing or even being a medical student (where you can make your own hours and leave when you want, and where you have no real responsibility) is not the same thing.
As for returning to Canada, well you really have two options there. You will have to either do all of your training in Oz or hope for the best and try and return to Canada and aim for a match there. Unfortunately you can't write the MCCEE until your final year of medical school. Realistically this means you will have to write it after you graduate, meaning it will be very difficult to balance the challenges of internship with studying for the MCCEE. If you decide to take that year off and don't have a PR, it will be very difficult to come back to Oz. The match rates in Canada are between 5-15% with many provinces (probably soon all by the time you graduate) requiring RoS for 1:1 durations. The ones that don't are already extremely competitive for this reason.
What good is finishing medical school if you don't even have a job waiting for you at the end of it? If you do decide to do all your training here, that's a minimum of 8 years that you'll be spending in Oz...if you decide to do GP.
As for lifestyle, I've seen the financial side of things (at least in General Practice) in Canada, the US and Oz. There are downsides/upsides to all three systems and here are my observations:
Canada - In large cities being a GP is actually quite competitive, as they seem to be on every block. Sure you can open your doors and fill your practice quite easily, but it's just as easy to lose those patients.
You have to stay working long hours because that's the only way to be competitive with other practices, since most people would prefer not to take a day off work to see you. Since 100% of your income is provided by the government (and it doesn't vary for the length of the consult) you also don't have any incentive for seeing people for any longer period of time. Thus you have to churn out your patients and that's why they have you in an examining room waiting for the doctor, because the time you spend walking into a room actually costs the doctor money.
They try and have an average patient time of about 5 minutes to maximise their income. Some GP clinics are already limiting it to 1 problem per presentation (as the elderly love to tell you about their chest pain just as they are about to walk out the door). To compound matters is the fact that patient notes are all still done on paper in most practices which makes it hard to find patient information quickly.
There are people that work part time but these are usually women. To do this, you either have to own your own clinic or be employed by someone else. The employment salaries are not very good (I can attest to this, as I received such an offer from Saskatchewan) and are certainly less then in Australia. It's difficult to start your own practice because you really don't get paid much as a resident, so you have virtually no savings. You can always take out a loan, but you will be upto your eyeballs in debt (your student loan(s) + mortgage on your house + mortgage on your practice). Superclincs don't seem to be as popular in Canada and typically you find that there's 1-2 owners with the rest of the doctors employees of the practice. That's partially why salaried doctors get paid less, since their payment is not a percentage of the patients they see but rather a fixed income, regardless of how many patients they see. In Australia on the other hand you are given a percentage of the amount you bill. See more patients, you get more pay.
To increase their income doctors would do things like charge you for a medical certificate, or extra for an insurance medical. This is how a supposedly 100% free government covered consultation ended up costing patients money. It was pretty dodgy.
Typical hours - 9am - 7pm + some Weekends
Pay (This is on average as a salaried employee) $100,000 - $150, 000 CDN
US - The pay is better then in Canada but you have a lot of hidden downfalls as well.
HMOs - If you don't prescribe/treat patients the way they want, they stop sending their patients to you. It's pretty much black mail. They essentially dictate how you should run your practice.
Poor patients - You just don't realise how much poverty there is in America until you actually work at a GP clinic. We had working adults who were making minimum wage, had subpar health insurance that couldn't even afford PPIs for their reflux, so we had to give them sample packets from the pharmaceutical companies! Most can't even afford to pay you.
Myriad insurance companies - Most realise that by making you chase them and by not paying you they can increase their bottom line. So you have to hire a person just to chase these aholes. So subtract about 25% of your income for the cost of hiring the person, and not getting paid.
Salaries - $150,000 - $170,000 USD (again salaried employee) but that doesn't include your malpractice insurance, which is quite high, but varies from state to state.
Hours - 9am - 7/8pm from what I saw, but again depends how much competition there is in an area. US doctors tended to work a lot more weekends. Most of the extra time was catching up on paperwork after patient consultations had finished. They had the most paperwork I've ever seen!
Australia - The good about the system is that you get paid from the gov't but you can get more to cover your session from the patient themselves (which you can't do in Canada). This means you have more time with patients, and therefore you see less patients in a day. Believe me seeing 25 vs. 50+ in Can/US was huge. You are a lot less stressed and that's why specialist practice is so attractive. You can afford to see 8-10 patients in a typical day of a specialists clinic, and make more then the GP who sees 25+.
I've so far never seen a GP clinic open later then 5pm, and most if open on weekends are open only half days. The only exception being where you have a superclinic, and the GPs in those cases have rosters.
There are only a handful of insurance companies, all strictly regulated, with the largest one owned in some part by the government. So payment from these companies is never an issue, with the rest of the money coming from the government (like in Canada) (or if you choose) you can charge the patient a nominal amount depending on the length of the consult. There are also extra things you can do such as health care plans, medication reviews that are mainly done by the nurse in your practice and paid by the govt that can triple your fee for a single patient consult.
Most of the GPs in Australia actually work part-time which is why there is such a shortage. Since they get paid more, they can afford to do 3 days a week.
There are also a lot more opportunities for GPs in Oz then in Canada or the US. You can become GP specialists with special interests and further training that allow you to make more money then a regular GP for specific consults. You have the option of getting specialist fellowships in Pain management or palliative care which mean you are a specialist in those areas, and thus you can do a combination of GP work, or purely specialist work. You can also do minor surgical procedures, like BCC/SCC removals, lumpectomies...etc. This is even in the suburbs of large metropolitan areas, didn't see any Canadian GPs doing this. If you like surgery there is also the added option of being a surgeon's assistant. You could net $3000-$5000 for a good day of surgery.
Of the three Canadian GPs had the worst practical skills. Most were surprised I knew how to put in fluorescein eye drops - they were thinking of referring them to the optometrist for this. That's the downfall of a 2 year training program. You pretty much know nothing (but the absolute basics) when you are done - I was utterly stunned by their lack of knowledge.
Disadvantage - Amount of training required. 4 years including internship is longer then Canada or the US. Plus because of the existence of all the "specialists" areas you're looking at 6 month diploma courses for GP-Obstetric or GP-paediatric or even GP-anaesthetists specialists if you are interested in these areas. On the plus side though the malpractice insurance is the lowest of all three countries (at least for now).
Salaries - Salaried employees get between $200, 000 AUD - $250, 000 AUD. Though living costs are slightly higher on average then in Canada/US. If you own a practice the income varies between $350,000 - $500, 000 for a well run practice.
Work hours - Most newer GPs work 3 days a week, though there are some that still work 5 days. Work hours are 9am - 4/5pm and if weekends then a half day Saturday (rostered). Exception being superclinics.
Paperwork was the least in Australia, because most GP clinics now have fully electronic notes, you can do all the paperwork as you go meaning very little catch up time at the end.
They will pay you upwards of 100k/year as a resident compared to 3-6 years of 30-50k/year in the US. 
