Hey guys, just asking for some advice.
I'm in year 11 right now, however I do some year 12 subjects (accelerated courses). I want to become a doctor, however, I did a bit of research and found out that I need an ATAR of 99.95 for Usyd or very high percentile in the UMAT for other universities. I believe I can achieve 90+ ATAR, but I'm not so sure about 95+. What are some things I could do become a doctor via different routes?
How to become a doctor?
LmKilic on 16/05/2018 - 21:40
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…..and here I am, was partying hard in year 11 and 12, thought I would be young forever. Now working for minimum wage in a factory with a wife that hates me because her friend's drive Volvo station wagons. Now I get a seizure when I see Volvo's on the road. I don't worry though, I recently bought 0.3 Bitcoin and some Verge, that will get me a Volvo soon.
The fuq.
Look at other courses (university or otherwise) that provide a pathway to transferring to a Medicine degree after the first year. The transfer will not be guaranteed, but if you do well in the first year, you could gain entrance in the second year and get some credit (not necessarily full) for the first year subjects that you have done.
Adding onto this, the most common pathway I've seen of people wanting to be doctors but not quite getting good enough marks is to enrol in a Medical Science degree. I didn't do it myself but from what I've been told it's good prep for the science portion of the gamsat.
UNSW has the only Ugrad Med Course. Students who do not gain initial entry often undertake the Bachelor Of Medical Science and use
it as an entry to postgrad degrees around - eg Newcastle, Western Sydney and Notre Dame.I understand top students end of year 1 can be offered entry to year 2 at UNSW
That's not true. Newcastle and Western Sydney also have Undergraduate Medical Degrees. MBBS.
For UNSW, there are 10 spots to transfer to med in a cohort of ~240, its a combination of WAM, UMAT and interview, done after the end of second year med sci. Your WAM will really need to be close to HD if you want a chance at an interview. Tough.
Sorry I don't think it is possible to transfer midway into a medical a degree. Everyone starts at year 1. That's pretty much the only way in
You can transfer from UNSW bmedsci into the middle of the unsw md i believe
You certainly can with most universities. There are quite a few people in my cohort transferred in half way through other degrees (mostly biomed or labmed). Just make sure you do a bachelor degree with the university that you want to do medicine in. Transfer is usually easier within the University and they often give priority to people already doing a degree with them as well.
P.S not my first hand experience. I’m a med student but I didn’t transfer in halfway. That’s just what I heard from people that did.
Buy a
stathoescopedoctor's listening thing.Do homeopathic or chiropractic "science".
Make sure all your stationary says Dr. And insist everyone addresses you as Dr.
Also start practicing on replacing letters and words with illegible squiggly lines.
Pharmacist are fluent in squiggly.
Stationary? Back to uni for you doctor.
I would like to TBH.
Bring on the student association keggers!
Yes, stationary, as in "Now hold still, this won't hurt a bit" and other lies.
Would you rather a dependable lie
or
"don't move, just need to ram this 8 gauge up your leg. Don't worry about that burning sensation, you'll get a chance to get used to it. It'll be there all week."
Little (non-racially provocative) white lies.
Don't forget to stick your hand up on the aeroplane when someone goes into cardiac arrest and offer to crack their neck as a revival technique.
Sacrilege!
You don't stick your hand up. You barge through the commotion and demand authority!
I have an easier solution officially change name to "Doctor" , Then look for your true love (whom a fortune teller told me his surname shall be Strange)
Lol lucky it's not bad-touch…
Or BOOM
Watch all of 30 Rock to study communication techniques of Doctor Spaceman (pron. Spichemen)
Have you got a careers councillor at your school? You need to talk to one to figure out the best pathway for you. They can advise what subjects or courses lead to what. If you don't have one, go and see the advisors at Uni Syd etc. You might have to go during school holidays.
Doing your bachelors of biomedical science then the GAMSAT is one way but it's VERY competitive. Majority of people I know in my year doing med are doing it interstate.
You should try and sit the UMAT this year. Do the "courses" and try and do as well as you can. If you don't do that well you can do it again next year.
You can also look at under grad routes. Look locally first and then country NSW (Newcastle) [your profile says Sydney so I'm assuming that's where you are] and then interstate(bond, Adelaide uni )
Yeh, I've got a careers advisor, I'll be enquiring about pathways with her. But like you've said, I've heard many people saying GAMSAT is actually harder than UMAT. Thanks
If at your stage you're afraid of "hard", then it's an appropriate time to think about other career options. Read up other Ozbargain posts on life as a doctor to gain more insight.
It is, but if you're predicting a 90 ATAR, then undergrad route is out of the question. It's also not going to get any easier.
Not true. You need an ATAR of 90 for Adelaide Uni. I mentioned this already in the post and got negged…
@bottletop: Bit late, but minimum ATAR is not the same as entry, that's why you got negged.
UNSW officially requires a minimum of 96 to apply, but realistically you need both high 99s and an excellent UMAT to even be offered an interview. I have friends who went through UNSW MBBS and no one in their cohort other than rural and indigenous students, got in with <99. Adelaide might be a bit looser, but point me at anyone who got in there with 90.
They're a bit different. UMAT is closer to an IQ test of sorts. You can't really study for it, beyond doing a few practice questions of the puzzle like section. There are prep courses and books and so on but for the most part I think they're bollocks (but then I didn't do any of them). GAMSAT requires study. It has science content in there. I did UMAT.
My suggestion would be look broadly. Consider going interstate. If you can't get into an undergrad course then go do post grad instead and you'll just have to do the GAMSAT prep.
Of note, ACER says the GAMSAT requires study, but in reality depending on your degree. You can get away without studying. I didn't study for mine and got a top 1% score, and a fair few of the people in my course were the same.
The science section is basically just testing your ability to quickly interpret supplied information, and the first two sections are just testing written communication.
Just make sure you choose an undergraduate course that teaches you how to think and solve problems, don't just go down the rope learning biomedicine route.
I would disagree polk, I've never sat the GAMSAT, but back in my day (>1 decade ago), the UMAT was a combination of basic sciences/logical reasoning (ez), emotional/interpersonal reasoning (er da fuq) and the third part was a where's wally with geometric shapes (super weird). I totally aced the third section it because I bought this program that randomly generated close-ish shapes for the third part and spent my weekends playing with it. No idea what the UMAT is like now, but if given enough desire you can study for any exam despite what ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research, the peeps who administer UMAT/GAMSAT) say.
But on the topic of not liking to do hard things, probably best to go do something less competitive than med if you don't like hard stuff. Medicine is competitive from day 1 of med school to even when you've finished your post graduate training and looking for a consultant job. If high paying jobs were easy everybody would be doing them. Med is competitive for a reason.
GAMSAT is much harder. It’s second year uni level whilst Umag is high school level.
Umat you need to get High 80’s to start to be competitive as it’s not that hard.
I got 63 in GAMSAT, which was the top 10%. It was the hardest exam over ever done.
Career councillors must be much more useful these days. Mine recommended I do chemical engineering at TAFE. WTF?
change your first names to Daniel Richard .
sign everything DR
let people make their own assumptions.
this
lol
Postgraduate medicine entry is always a option.
Entry is based on your GPA (Grade Average) based of your first degree, GAMSTAT score +/- your portfolio for extra-cirrciular activities.
Your undergraduate degree doesn't actually have to be related to medicine or science, several people in my medical school class had degrees in accounting, archeology, nursing, psychology and even philosophy. Choosing a easy degree for undergrad would actually help with entry (all undergraduate degrees are treated the same for working out your GPA).
GAMSTAT is the post graduate medical entry exam. You could attempt it in both your 2nd and 3rd year of your undergraduate degree. Plenty of courses and resources are available to help you prepare for the exam, its the hardest part of getting into post grad med.
Some universities require a interview, others will let you get in just based on your results.
Post grad medicine can be completed in 7 years minimum (3 years undergrad, 4 years post grad med). Depending on the undergraduate degree you pursued it would be 5-7 years.
Any specific questions feel free to ask.
Thanks a lot. Really broadened my understanding of how gamsat and transfers work with medicine.
Scab could give you some tips, he's a expert on the human body.
grab a nurse and start practising
.
I want to become a doctor,
Why do you want to be a doctor? Is it to help people, make money, prestige, a genuine interest in biology, your parents pushing you to become a doctor for their own pride, etc?
I don't want an office job, I don't see myself doing finance/business in the future. I want a job where I can help people and get recognised for it. My parents used to want me to be a doctor, but they sort of stopped pushing towards it. It would make me way happier telling them that I got into medicine though. I've always had an interest for biology since a young age, I do it as one of my subjects in school right now. I guess it's a combination of the many things you've said.
You don't get recognized for it.
Most of the time, patients do not recognize anything. Empty gratitude is the daily highlight. Not that it should bother you.
tshow is spot on. In Australia with Universal healthcare a lot of patients have a sense of entitlement. Not only do they rarely show gratitude, there's a lot that complains when when they receive wasn't what they were expecting (inflated expectations). There's a reason why medical indemnity insurance is through the roof last 20yrs.
mKilic, guess what GPs do all day? Sit in a chair looking at a computer in an office (aka clinic).
Agree. Read all the Reddit threads on why people regret being doctors. It really takes a special person, usually driven by ego… Which is sometimes good, sometimes bad.
@Dozingquinn:
I am greatly driven by ego, but to keep it in check, I take a lot of photographs and videos so I can measure my development.Self defined success is the end of progress.
Being a lifelkng Resident/Registrar is worse, you're forever getting screwed by hospital admin, working crappy hours, and you never really make decisions that impact significantly on patient's lives; you just end up being an agent to your consultant, doing what they want you to do, and some are just pure assholes. Your pay is shockingly awful compared to GP/consultant specialist. Nobody wants to be in a public hospital as a JMO for life.
There are lifelong private hospital ward CMOs, though almost all of them are in the job because of the flexibility for them to do other things in their life.
@mKilic:
thanks for your insightful input, did you come to that conclusion from your extensive experience in the medical field?A suggestion: Don't lock yourself into any particular plan for your speciality training at this point. When I was a med student I was definitely going to be a surgeon, then a GP, then an anaesthetist, then back to a GP. Now I'm doing physician training. You may find that your perceptions of a particular career at this point in time, and as a student, don't match reality. You never know what you'll do a rotation in and love.
GP is what you make of it. If you want to smash through huge numbers of patients and make lots of money, you can. If you want a more laid back life, you can have it. If you want to do procedures, you can. If you want to work in a hospital, you can.
@4sure: What a twisted view. I assume you have posted this to provoke comment. That's not big or clever.
In my field (psychiatry), not only do I not get gratitude for my work, most of the time I'm actively derided for it! But then I'm not really in it for the recognition but more for the personal satisfaction.
In Australia, doctors learn quickly that the job isn't too similar to our once-upon-a-time childhood dreams, but at the end of the day we all learn to deal with it - whether through a Messiah / Samaritan / martyr complex, a huge paycheck, or inflated grandiose egos, etc. And these are just some of the more healthy ways of coping that I've seen in my colleagues.
@luvv: I've been thinking of doing psych but I don't really like to talk to people. Can you do psych if you're not really a people person?
I really enjoyed my 6 weeks of acute inpatient psych during med school (it was my favourite term by far), but it was at a very good centre and I understand that olanzapine, risperidone and accuphase aren't the entire job. Elements of the training like the 40 session psychotherapy case and the 60% pass rate for the new assessments (worse than BPT!) really put me off. I'm also not that keen on really long MDTs or getting to know patients over a lifetime (something that puts me off GP as well).
Is there any room for primarily medical based psychiatry? Do you know any consultants who do that and are happy? What about in private?
@Save Medicare:
Whereabouts are you in your career at the moment? The best way to figure out if psych works for you is to actually do a rotation in it - either inpatient or community.
The thing I most like about psych is hearing peoples' stories. I mainly do psychotherapy in my private practice so that allows me to take time to explore my client's lives and to help them reinterpret things from their past and to in some sense rewrite their story and subtly alter the trajectory of their lives going forward.
I think psych offers a huge amount of variety - you can make it what you want to make it. For example, old age psychiatry, neuropsychiatry or CL psychiatry can offer perhaps a slightly more biomedical slant. CL and ED psych is more episodic care, so you generally won't see patients beyond their hospital presentations. Private practice tends to be a continuing relationship, but you can do exclusively private CL or one-off assessments (Medicare 291) if you want. But the end of the day we all identify as pretty deep thinkers, and I don't think that a good psychiatrist, even if they predominantly just prescribe, can ever be that great of a psychiatrist.
The training is rigorous but reasonable. Comparing to BPT, I feel the assessments are more reflective of day-to-day practice and experience so there's less studying for studying's sake / "gaming" the exams.
One of the best things about psychiatry imho is the culture - your colleagues tend to be really self-aware and deep thinkers, so there's not a strong culture of narcissism and bullying that are more present in other specialties. It's by default a pretty humbling specialty. Same as in other areas of medicine, there are happy and less happy practitioners. However, I feel that due to the flexibility of psych, most people end up doing what they want in a way that makes them happy - there are just so many combinations of possibilities, all of which can be mixed and matched to your heart's content: inpatient, community clinic, psych rehab, forensic, occupational, consultation liaison, emergency, teaching, administration, old age, child and adolescent, intellectual / develolmental disability, psychotherapy (multiple modalities), mother and baby, neuropsychiatry, telepsychiatry, indigenous mental health, primary mental health / population mental health, trauma-specific, social / cultural psychiatry, drug and alcohol, sleep medicine, sexual health, family / relationship work, research, psychopharmacology, neurostimulation, eating disorders.Clearly you have no idea what it means to be a doctor.
I think you should volunteer at a hospital and see what it's really like. Based on your responses, attitude and expected ATAR, I think realistically it is going to be quite difficult for you to get into medicine.
Have a read about what GPs actually do. Google rural GPs
Spend 1 week in a hospital and then come back and tell us you like working in a hospitalFirst and foremost, you need a higher ATAR. Most need 98+. Some with special consideration with get it with 95+
Hi - GP registrar here! Sitting at my computer at 9.11pm eating my first meal of the day (started at 10am, mind you). My day involved:
- Several biopsies and excisions of various skin cancers/cysts
- Organising help for a suicidal patient
- Several chest pains - one needing an ambulance
- Palliative care medicine administration
- Fracture management x 2
- Diagnosing a brain tumour
- A pregnant woman experiencing bleeding
- Plus coughs & colds and preventative health in between.I'm used to not getting'recognised'for these things and quite frankly, it's not a justifiable reason for wanting to practice medicine.
Do your friends/family recognise the help you provide to your patients? I would say yes. I think that is what OP is referring to. Not recognition from the patients. And LOL to your "quite frankly, it's not a justifiable reason for wanting to practice medicine". As long as you're committed, who cares tbh.
That sounds so thankless that you could nearly survive in IT. :)
If you're only eating at 9PM then I'd say you're in a pretty good gp reg job. It looks like you're getting a broad range of cases and plenty of patients throughout the day at that. Surely you could talk to your practice manager and block out a half hour for lunch?
Sorry if I offended you, not my intent, in my school I know many knucklehead pricks who want to become GP's and their reasoning for it is how it's easy signing a few papers and referring patients to specialist etc. I wasn't aware of the things you dealt with. The one GP I know works part time and said it was relatively easy. Again, sorry if I belittled the effort you put in.
Looks like your friends probably have 0 chance of doing medicine if that's what they think.
What may seem like a simple consult to you at the GP came from 10 years of study exponentially harder than high school. High school subjects are like learn the alphabet compared to a medical degree.
Most GPs say it's easy because they're trying to act chill
Go to a good GP who works full time and ask them if its easy. Nothing in medicine is easy when the a single error can kill someone.
You need to go and get some real experience and information about what a GP, a specialist, a surgeon and a nurse does.Heya beatwix,
You shouldn't skip meals. Working hungry is slower and more dangerous because your thinking isn't clear.
If you're not getting your 1hr lunch is a must for longevity then you have to speak to your manager to reduce your patient load.
As a GP registar your job is to learn, not to get hammered with patient load to make the practice more money.
Speak to your GP training program if your practice isn't supportive.Sounds like you're at a busy practice. In these practices, the patient load will ALWAYS exceed the doctor's appointments.
You'll never really get on top of the number of appts so the important thing is to priortise the actual sick ones -(somehow :p)With your current schedule you'll maybe go for 1 or 2 years before burning out. Remember your career will be for 20-30 years if you want to help the community
Look after yourself
YouTube
ATAR for medicine at Uni of Adelaide is only 90
Remind me not to ever go to hospital in Adelaide
Seen the results myself, it's actually 99+.
I'm sorry to say, your chances of becoming one is very low, since you asking in Ozb. Unless you reword your question to, "What is the cheapest way to become a Dr?"
I'm a current Med Student, so I can offer a bit of insight.
It is significantly easier to get into undergrad as opposed to post-grad, simply because the GAMSAT is much harder than the UMAT.
Beyond that, there are 3 key requirements; ATAR/GPA, UMAT and the interview.
ATAR/GPA; if you want to study within NSW (I see your location is Sydney), your options are UNSW, UON/JMP, UWS(WSU) & USYD.
UNSW you need 96 minimum, but unless you're rural/ATSI you'll need 98+.
UON, 94.3 or higher, if you get that or more you're fine, it's a threshold. ie. 99 or 94.3 is the same in their eyes.
UWS, 95.4 or higher, same as uon, just get that mark or higher and you're fine.
USYD, 99.95 or close to that. Unless you're going to get 99 or higher, forget USYD.
These universities also offer entry based on GPA, so if you dont get in straight out of high school, you can combine your ATAR with your GPA or just use your GPA entirely in some cases and get in through that. I'm not sure on all the requirements, but I know for example that UON requires a Credit average or higher. And again, if you get a Credit or HD it doesnt matter, just get above that and you're fine. So if you're really set on Med, pick an easy degree you like, get a good GPA and apply again.UMAT, you'll need at least 90th percentile or higher. Safe is 95+, but you can get in with 90-95.
Interview, if your ATAR & UMAT are good, then this is the most important by far. You really have to nail this. There are 2 types of interviews, MMI & the more traditional 'talk it out' style.
There are courses run for the UMAT and Interview, if you can afford them, they're worth it imo.
Anyways, that got a bit long, if you have any q's let me know :)
I found the UMAT and even more so the interview courses to be a load of rubbish.
UMAT courses are just fluff. You cannot teach someone EQ, comprehension and spacial perception in a few hours. The main content of UMAT courses is the practice papers, which, are freely available.
Interview courses are ridiculous. There are several interview panels each comprising of several individuals. The interview classes cannot possibly learn who the panelist are, much less what they're looking for in an interview, and learn about the unique characteristics of the interviewee and tailor to suit.
Work hard in school, be respectful of everyone, don't be drunk during exams and interviews. That's all there is.
Personally I found the UMAT medentry course to be useful.
Specifically it was good in giving me an idea on the types of patterns etc to expect (in S3) and a good way to work through them. As for section 1 & 2 it doesnt teach you everything, but it does give you an idea of what they're looking for.
Also, the papers from those courses are not freely available, they give like maybe 1 for free and there is 1 free UMAT paper from ACER, but that's pretty limited.
I agree that interview courses are mostly useless, but I went to a free talk run by a junior doctor and he gave an idea of what to expect in MMI's.
If you didn't find them useful that's fine, but I wouldn't discount them as a whole.
For interview prep, think talking to a med student such as yourself is much more valuable even if cost wasn't a factor.
The UMAT itself is just mind puzzles. A couple of practice papers is all you need to see what kinds of questions, the rest you can find brain teaser apps to the same effect. Except the BS empathy part, because it is full of BS.
I haven't done any umat courses or anything yet, however, I've always been good with puzzles etc.
I guess I'll just have to try my best in UMAT, maybe join a course or two to increase my chances.
Thanks for the advice.
This is the best answer. Be aware that kids will be going to coaching simply to get the best possible score in the UMAT. You will need to do similar - this isn't really even a question, you have to do it.
Postgraduate entry is more relaxed in some ways. Your SCIWAM or WAM ('weighted average mark' of all your courses) needs to be at least a credit average if I recall, but this varies between universities.
Many people do burn out though. A Bsc in Medical Science is gruelling in the second year but puts you in an extremely favourable position for the GAMSAT and first year medicine. Most people with ambitions of doing medicine in this course will drop them to simply be done with uni.
Talk to the unis! They have open days every year. Speak with them.
My daughter got a nursing degree and found she'd rather be a doctor so she sat the exam and had interview and went to UNE (fantastic new medical school) and graduated a couple of years ago. Maybe even try Paramedic to see if medicine is really the path you want. Believe me it's not all beautiful smiles from grateful patients!! i tried really hard to dissuade my kid from going there but at the end of the day her life her decision. School is very much different from uni - the hard work is up to you.
Yeh I get the whole "entitled-ungrateful" patients thing. And I'm a guy who's really emotional and things do get stuck around my head. However seeing atleast one happy soul is enough for me.
If things get to you easily, don't be a doctor.
You'll repeatedly witness needless suffering - some from malicious intent, others through willful ignorance.
You'll feel like absolute crap when you have to tell someone there's nothing more you can do. You'll think that was nothing when you have to deal with patients who you can help but they've chosen to trust a salesman with a bottle of vitamins over you.
If you could go back in time would you have done it all over again? I certainly wouldn't have. Often times I get asked by parents to talk to their kids about Med and what to expect etc. I say the polite things but in my head I'm thinking "Don't do it kid. Be free. Enjoy your life like everyone else" doubt they would listen anyway.
@Mysterymeat:
Honestly, I enjoy what I do and I've become thick skinned/ learnt to keep my bum well guarded.When I see snowflake kids ask me for career guidance, I point them far away from medical. It's no place for the emotional.
@tshow: Yea, you certainly sound like the Doctor type. I think I will enjoy GP just getting through the training period.
@Mysterymeat:
The best of every specialty, no matter how under appreciated, commands my highest respect.Good luck in your career.
It's annoying isn't it? In the end you give them the best chance they have at resolving their issue (If it can be) but ultimately if they choose not to I guess that's just natural selection at work.
It's unfortunate that there will never be a proper means of completely preventing alternative treatments from dissuading people from proper management
@buckster:
I don't mind people making decisions for themselves, whatever those decisions are. I used to care but now I look at the big picture, what's it going to cost the tax payer?In all but the rarest cases, homeopathy, aka supervised neglect, leads to treatable and preventable problems. Medicare (tax payers) are expected to fix it.
Get in via undergrad route if you can, but if you're looking at a 90 ATAR, then it's unlikely. Postgrad route exists, but GAMSAT is tougher, and it's also dependent on GPA. Entry is based upon UMAT/GAMSAT, interview, and GPA/ATAR; right now you can only really affect the latter, so knuckle down and maximise your grades, and cross the other bridges as you get to them.
Undergrad might be your best bet. Study up, a decent ATAR + UMAT score will probably be the easiest way to secure an interview (relative to other methods but there's more competition as lots of students want to be doctors straight out of high school).
Post grad involves GAMSAT and it is much tougher method of getting into med from what I've heard. A high 60/100 will get an interview at USYD. A few friends have sat the GAMSAT numerous times and have yet to get an interview at USYD. Their undergrad marks have been quite good and their ATARS have been 99+ but undergrad/high school performance doesn't perfectly correlate to post grad med.
To me Strand0410 is probably right. If you don't get into undergrad med, lots of people realise that med isn't what they really want after they go through undergrad so that might be you.
I only received 94.7 for my ATAR in 2010. I sat the UMAT and got 89% (percentile) I tried to apply for Med in Newcastle, Western Sydney, UNSW and was rejected. I then studied for 1 year doing a biomedical degree which gave me a GPA of 7.0. This is effective as you can study the subject you're best at. I re-sat the UMAT and this time got 98%. This does not mean you will get a spot in med. You still need to sit the interviews. I was rejected in all of the offer rounds from UAC and was called up 1 week before uni started and was offered a bonded place. It's a challenging degree with an even more challenging career. If you're doing it for money I would have suggested optometry. 4 year degree with a starting graduate salary of 95k. In comparison, with overtime, my salary is 85k as a resident medical officer (2 years out).
Not sure where you got 95k from. Seem quite high. A mate first year out get 75k with specsavers. Still pretty decent.
A friend of mine first year out with specsavers too. Told me he was on 95k. This was a Sydney city location so might have paid more.
Optometry will reach heavy saturation and oversupply in a couple of years though, so those wages ~80k metro will decrease
I believe I can achieve 90+ ATAR, but I'm not so sure about 95+.
1st thing BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, STRIVE FOR THAT 99.99999 and believe you CAN do it
Secondly, there are plenty of variables and other universities that dont necessarily need that same high mark, but strive for the 99.999999 nonetheless and BELIEVE YOU CAN AND WILL DO IT.
It is good to be prepared, and have a plan B (plan c,d,e also😉)
Some universities will add 5 marks onto your grade required to get in also, for eg, if you are local to that area, and sometimes if you are from a rurual area, and other variables which the uni considers upon applications. Not sure if the grade adjustment policies apply to medicine though.
There are certainly waya to become a doctor without starting off in that doctors medical degree course. I dont know about these paths, so i wont comment on them, other to say there definitely is different/easier paths to any career outcomethe highest ATAR score is 99.95.
It's also percentile-based. Most people who 'believe in themselves' won't get what they want, it's just maths. I'm all for motivation, but dude sounds like he's selling The Secret.
Yet if one aims for mediocrity, one will never achieve greatness. No harm in aiming high… The same cannot be said with not aiming high enough. If you believe you can't do something, it is usually a self-fulfilling profecy. This is a widely known pyschological phenomena.
@ozzpete: aim high but be realistic, not everyone can do everything.
Find your strengths and focus on those instead of wasting energy on things you can't exceed at unless they are a strong passion
@buckster: some people can excel at everything and anything they set their mind to. Of course, I did not mean for people to be delusional, I just mean, as a general rule, it never helps to believe you cant do well. Eg. If someone believes that they cannot get 99, and can only get a a maximum of 95, by having that belief, they will subconsciously limit themselves.
I believe in pushing ones limits and going beyond what others believe is possible/probable.
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You can go GAMSAT route so get your bachelors first (3 years) then apply for postgraduate medicine.