By Shreya Pilo
St John of God hospital in Murdoch. Photo by Shreya Pilo.
One of Perth’s biggest private hospital groups will soon open its doors to student doctors.
The new medical intern program will be rolled out by St John of God Health Care.
It’ll start in 2020 and see interns working primarily at St John’s Midland and Subiaco hospitals.
The interns will work in areas like general surgery, emergency medicine, general medicine and acute aged care, which will be their four core rotations.
According to President of the WA Medical Students’ Society, Harry D’Souza, the program was far more intensive with students working in five different areas as residents without room for a break. With four he believes it will help improve the welfare and well-being of students.
“Interns will have greater access to leave which I think will be good for burn out levels in this vulnerable group,” he said.
After the program, interns will then have direct and preferential access to a 12 month resident rotation stream within St John of God hospitals.
Notre Dame University careers officer, Kim Shaw recommends students start looking for programs like this well before they graduate in order to better their chances of getting hired.
“Any experience in industry is crucial in Australia particularly as we are a skills-based culture,” said Shaw.
“This experience allows you to prove your skills and thus helps you to explain your skills to an employer.”
It’s hoped the program will be extended to other WA hospitals with the hopes of increasing the student intake.
“Programs like this are really important for our students because more and more medical students are graduating each year and especially when Curtin medical school starts graduating interns, we’re going to need a huge increase in the number of internships available in WA,” said D’Souza.
The program includes dedicated formal and informal teaching by experienced consultants.
“A lot of private consultants tend to have a keen interest in teaching so there will be good teaching there as well.”