Thank you
@Rhandhali!
Overall are you happy with your experience there?
I left this part out.
Yes. I am very happy with my experience at UQ and Ochsner. I feel like I got excellent clinical training while I was in Australia and in New Orleans. I met some amazing people and had an educational experience that has given me some really good stories on interviews. My class was smaller and the program rawer; I feel that I contributed to the direction of the program in some small way. I have lifelong friends I met through the program. I've gotten to do things that I never thought I would do, been places I never thought I would go. I think I can say with conviction that there is nobody involved in this program that doesn't want to be, and that everyone who is involved wants nothing but the best for the students and the program. This includes me, now that I'm getting a house staff coat at the end of June and will be teaching medical students from my own program. The prospect of helping teach and train other students who are coming up through my program is an honor and a privilege.
I don't want to paint an incomplete picture. This program is not for everyone. It is a very hard thing to see your parents crying as you leave them in front of security knowing you might not see them again for two years. It is a very hard thing to get off of a plane after a long hard flight, smacked in the face with the smell of jet exhaust and eucalyptus as you wait to pick up the two checked bags that effectively represent all your worldly possessions, not knowing anyone except maybe through Facebook. You can feel very, terribly, desperately lonely, especially at first.
You are in a foreign country. It can be deceptive. You aren't getting smacked in the face with just how different things can be like you do in, say, China or Mongolia. They have lots of American shows on TV and speak English, but things are different. Sometimes it's big things that don't matter. Sometimes it's a lot of little insignificant ways that are cumulatively maddening and take a while to register. Not everyone can deal with that.
I had a classmate who got so cripplingly homesick he failed first year, recycled and then vanished; presumably dropped out or kicked out. Yes we have Skype and email and phones and Facebook but the sheer distance can be palpable. You are basically as far from home as you can physically be. That distance will always be there, no matter how much talking on the phone or Skype or Facebook. You might be able to ignore it for a while, but you'll get reminded. Maybe it's missing a sibling's birthday, or a friend's wedding, or the birth of someone's child, or worst of all a death in the family. You can't always just pick up the phone because of the time difference and you realistically probably can't hop on the next flight home.
Maybe think twice if you haven't really traveled or been away from your people for significant periods of time. A lot is going to be asked of you. Make sure you're up for it. Not everyone is and that's OK.
You're going to have the opportunity to do well if you chose to do. But if you need to be wheedled, beaten or cajoled into studying for your regular classes, let alone the USMLE, you will have a rough time. You will be in a training program that doesn't build it's curriculum around the USMLE. Everything on the USMLE is covered like it would be at any medical school but some areas get emphasized differently. Microbiology has been mentioned as being not as heavily emphasized. What does that mean? It means you're spending some quality time with your micro books and some micro questions from your qbank. You don't really need to in order to pass. Nobody's going to make you or stand over you and shame you into doing it. There will be USMLE tutorials but nobody makes you go. They will give you USMLE study materials, but nobody makes you use them. You are responsible to yourself and for your own performance.
Australia is a great place to be, and it has lots of opportunities to slack, lots of gorgeous days to go see gorgeous sights and do fun things. Most of your non-Ochsner classmates aren't under the pressure that you are and there is always something going on. You absolutely should go out with your classmates and hit the town some night. Go sailing, go surfing, go biking, go to keg, a sausage sizzle, an ANZAC day parade, the beach, the outback, the markets, the koala sanctuary, Fortitude Valley. Get a rail pass and see the countryside. It would be unspeakably shameful not to do so. However you must not forget why you came there. You must not forget what you are doing. You must not forget where you are going. You must manage your time appropriately which can be very difficult for some people. You got two whole years, but it's only two whole years.
I'm not trying to be dark but I am doing my best to be honest. I am happy with the program, the people and the training. I am very proud to have come through UQ-Ochsner. I keep my UQMS key fob on my key chain and my UQ-Ochsner pin will be on my white coat. That is where they will always be as long as I have either.
