Finally, the Year 5 placements are out. Took them a while, but hey, what’s new.
| Rotation Period | Rotation | Location | Pref # |
| 1: 25/01/2010 – 05/03/2010 | Elective | Mount Meru Regional Hospital, Arusha, Tanzania | |
| 2: 08/03/2010 – 16/04/2010 | Aged Care | Monash Medical Centre (Clayton) – General Medicine (Aged Care) | (1) |
| 3: 19/04/2010 – 28/05/2010 | Specialty | Monash Medical Centre (Clayton) – Paediatric Endocrinology | (4) |
| 4: 31/05/2010 – 09/07/2010 | Medicine | Frankston Hospital – Cardiology | (5) |
| 5: 12/07/2010 – 20/08/2010 | Surgery | Frankston Hospital – General Surgery | (7) |
| 6: 23/08/2010 – 01/10/2010 | Emergency | Dandenong Hospital – Emergency | (1) |
| 7: 04/10/2010 – 12/11/2010 | Vacation | ||
Well I’m not 100% satisfied cos I missed out on Paeds ID which I really wanted, and I’m not ecstatic about the fact that I’m going to spend 12 weeks at Frankston. But I guess things could have been worse, and I shan’t complain too much since I got my 1st choice placements these 2 years. I probably self-saboed by not choosing MMC Cardio as my 1st choice (as evident, my luck for Alfred has disappeared), as I might have had a better chance of getting the 12-week block for MMC Cardio & Paeds ID (and thus avoiding Frankston).
Regardless, one of the seniors who did Frankston Cardio this year told me that it was good, and at least Frankston is nearer to me than Casey or Maroondah. Also, the good news is that I got MMC rotations in 2 & 3, which means I should be able to get decent references for my intern application, especially since I’m quite inclined to apply to Southern Health. Looks like Alfred is quite out-of-reach now given that I won’t be able to get any references from there, unless I have super good results or win some prize next year, or some miracle happens.
What I don’t understand is how some people can get all their 1st choices, while some don’t even get any of their 1st-7th choices for a particular rotation. You would think that by giving us 7 choices, we would at least get 1 of them, but no, apparently not. While I understand that it’s a massive task to allocate 200+ students to 7 rotations that can be in any order, over a wide range of specialties in various hospitals, I do think that there should be some system in place to make things fairer for everyone.
And the final dodgy sentences that were at the end of the emails we got:
- Please note that circumstances may change at hospital sites at any time during the year, which may result in placements being amended or reallocated at any time.
- The Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences reserves the right to allocate students to specific sites based on perceptions of Faculty needs and student academic/health grounds.
Right. I sure hope nothing of the sort happens.
Ah well. It should still be a good year in terms of learning and finally getting more involved with the treating team. Though as we keep saying these days, need to pass this year first!












