Hello fellow smcians. How is life? Pretty messed up right? Wards, classes, attendance issues and to top it all, the lack of entertainment at university irritating you to the max? Well guess what, life isn’t very pretty across the wall. Lack of a good satisfying employer or a well paid job, indecisiveness about what future pathway to take a risk on and the general tiredness we all have been feeling at our jobs. All these are problems that most of us were not aware of when we graduated nor did we even think that such a state will come upon us any time in our lives(well theres a bit of exaggeration there I admit).
So tell me final years, you have just 9 months in hand before you graduate and then you will be left alone to explore the world on your own. Have you thought about what you are going to do after you leave this place? If the answer to the above question is even a slight no, please continue reading.
So if you look around yourself, you will see that not only recent graduates but people who had graduated es early as five years back are experimenting with their lives, hopping from one pathway to another in search of a residency placement or some stability career-wise. The problem? No prior career planning before we graduated. Only when we were exposed to the job market and realized that the job market is not suitable for us here or abroad, it was then only that we were forced to work on a backup plan to at least make ends meet. What was the drawback of not brainstorming our options before and creating a plan A and plan B before we jumped in to the ocean of opportunities? Wastage of precious and valuable time.
So to chalk it down, let me give you a few simple questions, the answers to which will guide you as to how to shape your journey for the future.
1) Do you plan to practice as a doctor or want to switch fields?
2) Do you plan to practice in Pakistan or work abroad?
3) If Pakistan, do you plan to do specialisation or just continue working as a medical officer(with no additional degrees)?
4) If you want to pursue specialisation in Pakistan or abroad, what field have you decided to work in?
5) How did you make a decision to choose this particular field? Any prior experiences in that particular department working as a full time doctor to advocate your decision? Note: just because you ‘like’ something, it does not necessarily translate in to your future career choice. (sorry, major myth buster there)
6) If you plan to work abroad, which pathway have you decided to choose? PLAB, USMLE, AMC, etc.
7) Do you have full knowledge about the timelines and procedures that you need to follow for these pathways? This means that if you assume that you are a graduate today and have all the required documents in your hand, do you know how to carry out each and every step of the application that is going to come in your way?
8) Do you or your sponsor(parents, guardian, some friend or family member) have the finances to support you in pursuing this pathway?
9) What made you choose a particular pathway? Do you know the real time job scenario in the market that five years later when you graduate as a consultant of a particular subspeciality, what are you going to do then? Will it be a private clinic that you will be establishing or will try to secure a job in some top notch hospital (regardless of where you have graduated from) or try to apply abroad in the middle east and work there?
The reason for asking the above questions is to trigger your thought process in to thinking about something which most of you might not have ever done in your life. Why? Because no one provoked you to. But the answers to these questions are really important to make timely decisions. All of us have seen smart people around us who appear in USMLE exams during medschool and fly off for electives and foreign exams right after graduation and six months or a year later, you see them being matched at some hospital in the states. While there are plenty of examples of people who tried their luck at one pathway without a backup plan and unfortunately did not get to pursue that and then had to start from scratch to work on plan B. So the point I am trying to make is that life may not look too wonderful to you today but this is a golden, carefree time in your lives and given the opportunity, all of us graduates would want to return to the carefree college life again. So think about your career choices before its too late.
Anyways, all the above discussion is regardless of the fact that whatever is destined for you is going to come in your life at just the right time. I am a very strong believer of this fact but what I also know is that nothing in life is going to be served to you on a golden plate and that whatever has been destined for you has to be grabbed with utmost hardwork, determination and good planning. So you can’t make any compromises there.
Also, the above post was done with the purpose of giving you a mini heart attack and I am expecting a lot of inbox messages or comments as a reflex reaction, asking for guidance about a particular field of interest or about pursuing a particular pathway. Know that all of us seniors are here to help you out but we can’t dedicate our time to guide you about something from scratch. So if you want to know about FCPS in some field, do your research about the document requirements for part 1, the exam pattern, the books required, how many years it takes for the complete training in your field of choice, what is the IMM and FCPS II exit exam. All this is information that is already available easily on the internet and we need not waste time discussing these basic things. However after you have exhausted all your research resources with regards to a particular thing, then only drop up an inbox message. We will be happy to guide you.
Point to note: I plan to pursue residency in Pakistan and have zero to minimal knowledge about the current scenario of how to apply for foreign exams and their current acceptance rate of foreign graduates so I am not the right guy to consult for the foreign pathway. However you will find a lot of seniors ready to help you out in this regard but remember the golden rule that I mentioned above.
P.S. Choose your mentors wisely. It is particularly important who you are asking for information on a particular thing. Top priority should be given to people who have cleared these exams and are in the process of applying or are currently working after clearing these exams as they are updated on the latest information which might be missed or overlooked by people who went through this thing somewhere in the past.
P.P.S. If any senior has made the effort to go through this post, I am very sorry if it hurt your sentiments in anyway. The point was not to undermine your efforts in any way, its a difficult journey I know and all of us are giving our absolute best to land at good places so whatever I wrote above, please don’t take it to your heart. I respect you all highly and this was done with a purpose to give a small reality check to the new lot.
