Oxford University Press are offering 50% off of their Medical Handbook series.
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or junior doctors
Or people that screwed up GAMSAT yesterday, and need to cling to any shred of medical literature that will make them feel like a doctor.
On a completely unrelated note, I bought some
Don't worry, how people felt about it does not in any way correlate with how people actually went. ;)
I thought I did terribly and got into my first choice of medical school - that being said if you fall down get back up and sit it again
All you gotta do is get some dole (rob a casino)
Go to a private uni
Pay them $400k cash
And they might enroll you
Same with Melbourne uni
If it helps, GAMSAT much harder than med school.
Maybe the first year or so but not towards the end…
@Mysterymeat: Whole way through I reckon, I'm PGY4, certainly much harder to get into med school than it is to pass (95% pass rate? what's the gamsat passrate?)
@womble: From an academic point of view maybe. What makes it difficult is the requirement to be at hospital full time as a 5th year student and not get paid a cent. My wife travels over an hour each day to get to her hospital, works 8am - 5pm, studies when she gets home and works both days on the weekend to actually earn a living. She also never did the GAMSAT only the UMAT.
@Mysterymeat: I completely agree with Mysterymeat. I am PGY1 and my fiancee is 3rd year Medicine on full-time placement. The problem really is as Mysterymeat says above. As a student you're at the hospital full time making no income and then also have to study when you get home making earning money almost impossible. You're effectively working a 60ish hour week unpaid although I concede some of that is "working from home". The amount of student income support you get is the same as an Arts student with 8 contact hours a week who can easily add a little work into their timetable. And before anyone takes offence to that I easily worked during my 15 contact hour a week undergraduate degree in medical science.
So academically it is challenging because of the volume of content and it is financially and socially challenging because of the lifestyle. That is why most of the local graduate medicine students still live at home (if Mum and Dad are okay with it) and our interstate colleagues all live together in share houses. Then when you graduate most of us have credit card and personal loan debt because we took it out during our medical school time to pay for daily expenses.
At least it is much easier for the both of us now that I have graduated and am getting paid so we have at least one steady income. :)
@Australianjim: You know what i'm talking about! There's so much misconception about Doctors making all this money but people fail to understand the process; loss of income during study, medical insurance costs, HECS debts and even the cost of sitting exams (upward of 30K and many fail) You do Med for the love of helping people not the money.
I am lucky because we had local family to help us and we had some savings from a gap year we took between degrees. But a lot of my interstate friends who have recently graduated with me are $20,000-$30,000 in debt (mixture of personal and credit card). Combined my fiancee and myself have about $180,000 of HECS debt.
When you compare that to my friends who graduated from high school with me… most of them have bought houses, starting families etc. I am 28 and she is 25. Effectively we have just been financially stagnant since leaving high school till this point because of Medicine. We are now financially where my high school friends were 5-6 years ago as new graduates. We won't be able to get enough together for a house deposit for at least another three years (ie. at least a year after she graduates). And despite all this, we are lucky being in WA where we get paid more as new graduates than most other states, a lot of our east coast colleagues have it even harder (and that's without talking about east coast job prospects for new graduates).
So whilst our income earning potential is higher in the long term (very very dependent on each specialities private practice potential and public hospital demand) we have effectively already lost at least 5 years of income that our colleagues from other professions have already accumulated.
In the next 18ish months I will need to start looking towards speciality training and as you said I can easily blow tens of thousands of dollars on that… and sadly for some specialities, there is almost no earning potential at the end. And for those not in medicine… FYI in some specialities, doctors can't get work - I know a radiation oncologist who has been out of work for 12+ months, a consultant paediatrician that has been FTE 0.4 and trying to get FTE 1.0 for two years etc.
As for my med school friends who have significant debt I don't even know how to equate that to my high school friends from other professions. They are already $70,000-$90,000 in HECS down each but owe probably on average $20,000 personal debt. They have no ability to purchase a house and no savings despite working unpaid for 60ish hours per week for their university time 4+ years of medicine.
The upside is that if you pick the right speciality, get on the training program and progress well and get a good consultant job then hopefully you can make good money in the end… you just have to skimp and scrape along the way to get there.
Which has nothing on most specialty exams
Don't go into debt. Buy basic food only, ride a bike, for holidays go camping, or do some extra paid work. Spend Monday to Friday, and Sunday afternoon in hospital or with your books. Saturday morning take casual paid work. Saturday pm and the odd evening is your own. Enjoy time with your friends and family.
Those were some of the happiest days of my life.
Financially challenging, but physically and mentally you will be top of your game.
More med life stories:
Complete course costing 24k and taking a year of your time because the college you want has it as 3 points. 1 year later, same course is now worth 0 points.
The system essentially either wants you to a) go over to GP land or, b) sell out and do something like cosmetics.
@prolo: I agree with most of that except the ride a bike bit. I ride a motorbike because it is cheaper to/from the hospital with free parking. However, there is no way you could do medicine in WA without a motorised form of transport. You often have to go between different hospitals during the day and our hospitals are spread so far apart that public transport is impractical. So if you meant motorbike then I agree… if you meant bicycle well I assume it would make sense in some cities.
A couple of banks (boq specialist and another one I can't remember off the top of my head) offer Low interest rate loans to penultimate and final year students.
Boq specialist's program is a $7000 overdraft account at around 6% pa and you only have to start paying it off 6 months into your internship. So potentially more affordable than accruing debt on a credit card.
Not sure about the other one but I assume it's similar
Discl: boq specialist sponsors a company I volunteer at so that's how I know about their offer. Not financial advice.
I'd rather sit the FRACP again than the GAMSAT. It's an awful exam.
@womble: Getting into med school and the GAMSAT are not the same thing. People get in with great GAMSAT scores with poor undergraduate marks, and people with average GAMSAT scores get in if they have great undergraduate grades. Also depends where you apply. The GAMSAT was an awful, awful exam, and you don't really pass it. If I recall correctly I got 68% for GAMSAT and placed in the top 4%.
@DrC: mate i did gamsat and finished med school, I am pgy4. My point was in my opinion gamsat is far harder to go well in and get into med school than actually pass med school. Not sure where all these comparisons gamsat vs specialists exams came from, I was giving encouragement to the original comment to encourage them to keep going, it gets easier….
@womble: It is easy to pass med school, but difficult to do well in. There is a lot of competition for the top spots.
[@DrC](/comment/4558871/redir
So you now appear to agree with me that passing med school is a breeze?
Legend thankyou OP!
Cheers good opportunity. Bought one for 88. was 69 on fishpond for comparison.
call 1800-DOCTORB. The "B" is for Bargain.
Definitely well worth the investment!
If you can score a job like this one, you've certainly made a great return on your investment.
https://au.indeed.com/m/viewjob?jk=278c56b200ccf3cc&from=ser…
Read "teleporting" rather than "telereporting" at first - thought that even for $300k that was asking a bit much.
yep just get accepted to med school spend 6 years studying full time
2 years of residency then 6 years specialising and after 14 years you are there!
Some unis have 4 year postgrad medical programs but you are absolutely right about the 2 years residency and the 5+ year registrar training. But at least we get paid somewhat during that time :D!
2 years of residency? Good luck.
Also good luck finding a job after you finish fellowship =D!
so which handbooks should i buy if i ever want to start to prepare studying medicine and aim to be a radiologist? my brAIN IS fried from seeing all these textbooks~. halp!!!
My dad is a doctor of around 30 years
Will these books be of any use to a seasoned doctor or are they just for students to cram for an exam?
Your dad will be writing handbooks.
Depends on specialty/interest area. I bought the neuro and clinical evidence ones purely out of interest and to keep my knowledge in those areas up to date.
It is mostly useful for student. These books are too general and lacking in details in the most important aspect of management. You will waste your money. I have these during my student years but they are useless to me now.
Not smart enough to have done medicine :(
Had a crack at the GAMSAT? Brains are funny things, they can pushed a bit further than you think.
Free?
Been a long time since I sat it, was a few hundred bucks from memory.
Thanks mate! :)
How fast is the shipping, out of curiosity?
Cheers
Cheers
There are a lot more doctors/med students here than I thought
med students are poor, plus ozb is good procrastination
^^ this
which of these is good for a final year student who is interested in keeping his knowledge up to date but doesn't really know what speciality they may pursue? So a general one but I dont want it to be too general ":( im not sure im making sense. I see a lot of students get 'clinical medicine' would that be advised?
lols
https://www.oup.com.au/books/higher-education/medicine/97801…
The Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine for sure
Second this.
thank you sir/madam I will buy it for sure now.
OHCM is aptly nicknamed "the bible" for medical students and physician (internal medicine) trainees
thank you for that, will get my hands on it ! :)
Not a med student or a doctor but bought one for the sake of bargain!
lol!
Are these worth the extra $$ than the free stuff on Google for me to figure out why I feel lethargic, perspire lots and feel the need to click "buy" buttons so often?
hardly see these deals on their official website, it might be because they are updating a lot of their books soon.
Heard someone mention this deal over the weekend in Brisbane.
Oxford handbook of clinical medicine is probably the most essential textbook for med school. Will gladly say I carried it with me every day in year 3, as did most of my cohort.
It's not a bad coffee table read either.
Which would people recommend for a first year nurse to expand their knowledge?
Thought I'd chime in.
Doctor here. PGY4. Came over as an international from Canada. Mature age, did 2 degrees and tried getting into Canada multiple times to no avail (100 spots per 4000+ applicants makes it difficult). Graduated med school $200k in debt as fees were $45k per year. Kept the rest down by working 20+ hours per week as my visa and cash jobs would allow.
Debt is down to $100k now. Am 33 but also own a beautiful home in FNQ and am training up to be a GP. Wife is a nurse.
It's been a hard slog. Many times I thought I wouldn't get a job, that I gave up my life, friends and family in Canada for nothing. I kept my head down and my wits about me though, and with some luck and hard work, I think I've made it. Totally worth it in the end but I wouldn't recommend it to someone without absolute determination. It is and was very hard with some seriously dark times (lived for a month off $20 once after rent because my cash tutoring job fell through whilst studying for big exams; that was rough especially living in crapelaide and it's social conservatism and underlying xenophobia).
Anuyways! These books are great and I highly recommend them! Bought a couple! Thanks OP!
Crapelaide?!!! More like Radelaide ;)
Haha sorry if I offended anyone. I found the city intolerable myself. 5 years of misery but of course I had many different things going on during those years.
Not offended.
Just that Adelaide med students are known to be party animals.
Not really that special a deal.
Book Depository normally have them for $30-$40AUD. I bought this earlier this year.
https://www.bookdepository.com/Oxford-Handbook-Oncology-Jim-…
I found them useful in uni and start of career but TBH, a lot of the info and terminology is UK specific or too non-specific to be safely used as a clinical reference.
For 50% off, it's a decent buy but not worth it otherwise.
Thanks op. Was hesitant to buy any because textbooks usually collect dust.
Spoke to my tutor who is majorly against the purchase of textbooks but even he agreed these are great texts that are worth a purchase. Short-listed with him down to three titles and made the purchase. All up $101 with delivery, great deal.
Nonsense the more you have the smarter you become by osmosis :D
If you do a bit of googling, you may be able to find the whole load in some electronic form ;)
pm me on this please
so which handbooks should i buy if i ever want to start to prepare studying medicine and aim to be a radiologist? my brAIN IS fried from seeing all these textbooks~.
The Handbook of Clinical Medicine is the one for medical school
Great deal for medical students out there.