The whys

Why blog at all?

For the general public:
Whether we like it or not, a Caucasian's perspective is completely different from an Indian's perspective which will be entirely different from an African-America's perspective. My blog will, hopefully, give an Indo-Canadian perspective on living in Australia. This includes dealing with worried parents, subtle prejudices, being homesick and all that goes with being Indian on the outside, Canadian on the inside and Indian, even more inside!

For my sanity:
Rather than playing video games or finding another hobby to do during my studying breaks, id rather write out my thoughts and reflect -- so I dont lose sight of the big picture. Also, some days will get quite tough, and Ill need to lighten the load by typing my heart out to sleep easy.


Why Australia?
Simple reason:
Short sightedness + easy way out + family convenience

More complex reason:
My grades werent strong, but they werent weak either. I was in the "upgrade GPA another year and apply" pool. However, the anxiety caused by the perceived "lack of direction" my life was going in, was enough to insist that I look for more certain options. Perhaps anxiety is the wrong word. The mood was more along the lines frustration, disappointment, anger etc. I went from "he'll get in to med 2 years" to "he is wasting his life". I could have told them to deal with these emotions, but I wanted the easy way out too.

Those options were the Carribeans, Australia and UK.

I cancelled out Carribeans because my worse case scenario plan sucked. Same with UK. The amount of difficulty my American friends (Carib graduates) had with getting a decent residency in the states with a Carib MD and a decent USMLE score was quite scary. Now add in the fact that these hospitals will look at me say "what? H1B visa!? What are we? Rich?" was also really worrisome. Furthermore, I tried to gauge where the overall direction the American residency situation was going. Which is...steady amount of residencies but more and more applicants.
The Carib stigma was also a factor in my decision, but it was not a huge factor. I will never look down on a Carib graduate, neither should anyone else as they have to do much better than local graduates to get the same residency. Furthermore, I really liked SABA's program

Australia stuck. Yes, its next to impossible to come back to Canada and yes getting an internship in Australia is not easy. However, i have more connections in Australia than in States. And yes, Canadian residency directors look upon Australian students more favorably.

My evidence? Nothing substantial. I have weak supporting arguments like the CARMS presentation to University of Queensland students, to anecdotal evidence from IMGs who recently finished their residency. However, the worst case scenario with the Australia option is that I end up in Australia. Given the direction of NSW policies, in 4 years, it seems that getting an internship here might actually be quite reasonable.

Does my reasoning sound wish washy...uncertain...weak? It is. When i was knee deep in charts, policies and commentaries I realized that I have to just make a decision and there isnt a piece of information out there that will make any of the 3 options I had stand out. One option was just as likely or unlikely as another. In the end, I knew i wanted to go in medicine and I knew i had to do it soon. I simply chose my uni based on something as ridiculous as rankings.

So here I am.