NSW Jobs

Application for NSW Junior Medical Officer (JMO) has commenced today. Please visit http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/jobs/recruitment/jmo.asp
for further information about application.
Remember application closes on 15 August 2012. 

QLD jobs

Application for junior medical officer (resident medical officer) for Queensland Health has commenced today. Please visit http://www.health.qld.gov.au/rmo/apply_now.asp for application and further information.
Remember application closes on 16 of July 2012.

ACT jobs

Application for job as Intern in ACT has been commenced and RMO will commence in July 2012. Please visit http://health.act.gov.au/employment/medical-officer-training-recruitment/ for further information and application process

Tasmania Jobs

Tasmania Health has launched his campaign for RMO today. Please visit this link for further information.  http://www.dhhs.tas.gov.au/career/home/medical/junior_docs/current_campaign

Western Australia Job

Western Australia Health has also started process for application. Please visit this link http://www.pmcwa.health.wa.gov.au/doctors/recruitment.cfm for further information.
Remember application closes on 8th of June 2012.

Victoria Jobs

This is season for hospital job application. Usually it runs between May to Aug. Different state has different system and dates. If you are looking for junior medical officer job in Australia this is the time for central application. I would advise you to make a nice resume with current referee and get ready.

Victoria Health has application open for intern and RMO. Please visit http://computermatching.pmcv.com.au/public/howto/index.cfm for further information. 

Registration

Again, this is common and interesting question about registration.Received reply from Dr A about previous post. 

Thank you for your frank reply. I am planning to give my clinical in July and waiting for exam date from AMC. I would like to know about the pathway to get full registration if I take up this GP job? I am aware that even after passing clinical its necessary to do rotation to get full registration, how will I get full registration if i become GP?

Hi Dr A, 


This is interesting question. If you go on rural pathway without passing clinical exam and necessary rotation, you will not be eligible for general registration, you will get conditional registration until you passed your GP exam (FRACGP or similar). Once you have passed your specialist exam, you will get registration as a specialist (GP is specialist in Australia), not general registration. Although nothing much changes from that except few other specialty will need general registration if you want to change your career, otherwise there is not much restriction what you can and cannot do as GP.

You can pass your clinical exam and either apply for exemption or do necessary rotation to get full registration. There is not other way around for OTD/IMG from developing countries (!!!???). Doctors from few countries will be eligible for competent pathway, but it is another point of discussion.

Hope this answers your question. 

Resume writing

Resume is really important part of application process and getting job. Remember that you have to sell yourself, but you have to be honest. Presentation as well as wording is important part of resume. Writing good resume also reflects that you have good writing skill, which is one of core skill you need to be a good doctor in western country.  This is you chance of showing that you have good knowledge about computer and Microsoft word. I recommend that you include your professional photograph, use advance knowledge Microsoft word (use help button, ask your friend if you don't know or use professional) to formatting. Google for resumes/format of resumes, how to write good resume, as you will find lots of examples and good suggestion. I suggest resume should be edited according to job specification, so each job requires new resume, but most of the time it is just adding few things and deleting few things or editing. Make sure that you include mandatory and optional job requirement in your resume in some way.

There are few core things you need to include as a necessary and there are few optional things you can write to put more impression. This is your chance to get an interview. Most of the people do get job if they will get interview. Hospital administration doesn't want to waste your and their time for interview if they are not keen to give you job.

Core things:

• A4 size paper (if you are going to send electronically, make sure that it prints on A4 without any correction). Ideally 2 pages and maximum of 3 pages of core things.
• Personal detail: Your full name (as in your passport), your current address and contact detail including email address (this is the last thing you want that hospital was happy to call you/email you, but your phone number was wrong or you don't access your email for 1 month) date of birth (optional, but I recommend), sex, marital status (write your spouse occupation, if your spouse is doctor), nationality (optional, but definitely write if you have Australian working visa - like PR, Australian citizenship), driving licence if you have one.
• Qualifications - write medically relevant qualifications in chronological manner (latest first) and then all other qualifications - non medical. Include your AMC status and IELTS/OET status.
• Experience in chronological order - if you are out from workforce for certain reason, make sure you write that like maternal leave, non medical study, travelling, but don't leave that up to guess. In your experience, you should include your key duties (here you can add, edit or delete duties according to job advertisement). Include your voluntary experience like observership, special program attendance, Sumatran work etc.
• Continuous professional development: explain how you keep yourself up to date with current medical knowledge and what did you do so far since your medical school. Write you publications or journal articles you wrote.
• Registration status: You must write if you are register in your country, other country and whether you have any registration (including past) like temporary registration in Australia.
• Non-clinical skills: write everything which is relevant like computer knowledge, sports, memberships
• Referee: you must include current referee who were your medical supervisor or at least write that happy to provide as necessary. Make sure you have at least 3 referee ready for this. Find out three strong people (ideally local, national then last chance in your country) like department head or unit head. If you have local referee (if you did any medical course or observership) then definitely include them. 

Optional things:

Most of your prospective employers are Australia based and usually doesn't travel to get information about overseas university or hospital. It would be nice to include nice summary for your university, attached hospital and hospitals where you have work experience. You can write 3-4 pages for this, but make sure that you write nice headings, so if your prospective employer wants to read about the organisations, they can do so. Again, if they are not interested then it goes in file and you are not wasting their time.

It is not essential, but it would be nice to have copies of your qualifications, registration certificates and relevant certificates attached to resume. Again put nice big headings, so you are not wasting your prospective employers time. I would suggest scan copy (.pdf format is usually better than .jpg) of your documents and provide with electronic resumes.

After you have done, read at least 2 times and make sure you are happy with your performance. Check spellings and grammatical mistakes. Ask your friends or partner to go through your resume for proof reading. I am happy to provide proof reading and formatting service at reasonable cost if anyone would like to have that done. Please email me with your resume and detail.

Please read disclaimer before using any of the information on this blog.

How to find job in Australia?

I know this is a burning topic. At the end of day, that's a goal. All IMGs do all exams to get a job in health field.

As I mentioned in my previous article, job is still there, but getting harder to find and get. It all depends on demand and supply. At present supply is increasing compare to demand which is stable. Although, it is getting harder, it is not impossible to find and get job. One of the mantra to get job is to be at right place at right time and see right person. One of my friend just recently got job after AMC 1 despite no local experience, but he tried too hard to stand out from crowd. Now that's the main point. You need to stand out from crowd (which is getting larger and more competitive) to be noticed from your prospective employer. So, what can you do to stand out from the crowd. I will explained few points for you to get out from crowd.

I am not going to talk about conventional method - like apply through seek.com and Department of Health website or register your name with database. I am pretty sure eveyone who are reading this know about this (happy to write about this if anyone wants to know). I am going to share my friend's experience and talking about unconventional method.

Application:

Don't be afraid to apply for a job. Apply to everything. Call them prior to application ask what's requirement of position. Try to address all requirements in your resume and if you cannot fill requirement try to explain what you can do to fulfil. Apply with standout killer resume (this is whole new topic and will try to cover in future article). Remember sending your resume is like selling yourself. You are selling your service. Call them once you have apply and follow up your application. You never know when your resume will be selected for interview. Call them/email them even if you are not successful for that particular position and offer that you are still available and happy to be contacted for future position.

I also want you to know that you also need to be careful about social networking site, so visit social networking site and make sure that things show up on your pages are suitable comments as a doctor.

Job Vacancies:

If you know about a job from Internet or from public access site, there is good chance that everyone else who are looking for that job will know the same thing. If you want to get job, you need to find job vacancy that only few people know about. More than half of the medical job vacancies are don't get advertise in public place. This is difficulty to find, but if you are in contact with medical administration or department secretary, there you have good chance of finding these kind of vacancy. It is also to ask or find doctor friend who is working in the system.

Show your genuine interest:

Now let me tell you about my friend. He was genuine and he showed up his skill and knowledge in genuine manner, so he got the job. He contacted ED secretary of a hospital and asked for job, obviously on first instance he was refused about the job. Then he contacted the secretary again for observership, again didn't get. Then he asked to attend teaching sessions, which after a while he was told that ED consultant/supervisor is happy for him to attend lectures. He showed genuine interest in learning about the system and clinical knowledge. Luckily after 2 months, ED department had vacancies. This vacancy was advertise in local newspaper (now how many people will read every page of newspapers from every state everyday?). Guess who knew about the vacancies first!! He already established his reputation in 2 months and after application guess who got the job!! So in short, he offered his service as try before you buy!!!

I can write about this topic for another couple of hours, but the main thing I want to tell you that try with conventional method about finding job, if you are not sucessful think about unconventional method. Stand out from crowd!!

Job condition in Australia for doctors

I think this is bit tricky and sticky topic. This topic will be difficult to address too. The situation is different for junior doctors and specialist. It is also different in metropolitan and rural location. I will discuss the situation for junior doctors here in this article.

In my view, jobs are getting less and more difficult to find for junior doctor who has no experience in Australia, but on the other side there are still plenty of jobs available for junior doctors who has local experience and are fully registered with AHPRA.

Recently, few things have happened which is affecting the job markets for doctors. In past few years, Australia made migration easy and open the gate for more people (now they have put more restriction though), which made more people aware about Australia as a opportunity. Couple of years ago, AMC decided to start offshore AMC examination for part one, which made examination available to lots of new people and increased flow to Australia. And the last thing, which is happening now is Australia has increased more medical places for local students, which is now increasing more graduate coming out from universities and feeling out places as a junior doctors.

Job condition is also different between different states and different parts of states. States like NSW, ACT and Vic, it is pretty difficult to find job in metropolitan areas, but still plenty of jobs available in rural and remote location, but some of are not suitable for junior doctors who has lack of experience and required supervisor. SA and QLD are still hot for junior doctors as it is still possible to find internship and plenty of RMO positions in ED, even in metropolitan hospitals. WA, TAS and NT are neutral for the situation in my view. I occasionally do locum work, main to find out more about different hospital and system, but also to find out demand and supply ratio in different hospital. Trust me there are still places to be fill by junior doctors, but it is getting more harder. You need to find right person at right time and right place to get the job. I will discuss this in my next article.


Please read disclaimer before using any of information available on this blog.