Dr. Sern Yeoh is a Gastroenterology fellow who completed majority of his junior training at Austin Hospital and travelled to Hobart for the beginning of his Advanced Training. In this podcast, he talks about how he decided to pursue Gastroenterology and other specialities he was interested in along the way.
We discuss the diversity of subspecialities available in gastroenterology and how a registrar can be expected to split themselves between inpatients, outpatients, endoscopy, research and several other jobs throughout a normal week. Dr. Yeoh also goes through the number of hours a gastro registrar is expected to work, including on call, weekends and overtime, touching on how difficult it can be to maintain good work-life balance.
Dr. Yeoh gives us his stance on whether or not medical students/junior doctors should spend time pursuing research to make them competitive candidates when applying for hospital positions. He also provides details on how to find research projects that are the most “high-yield” at a medical student and a junior doctor level. Gastroenterology seems to be a very competitive speciality, with about 2.5x the number of applicants to advanced training positions each year; Dr. Yeoh provides some tips on how to be more competitive as an applicant and ways to get your foot into the gastro door.
We also talk about the time Dr. Yeoh spent in Hobart and the benefits of working away from Melbourne and in a smaller hospital. He discusses the challenges he faced as a registrar as well as outline the most rewarding aspects of his job. Furthermore, he gives us his thoughts on how he sees the gastroenterology field advancing in the next couple of years in regards to research, types of patients, new sub-specialities and treatments.
Finally, we discuss the plausibility of taking breaks during the “medical school to consultant” journey and when Dr. Yeoh thinks it’d be most appropriate to take time off, whether it be to travel, to complete a different degree, to start a family or to pursue other interests, and the consequences that may be associated with this.
We hope you guys like our second installment in this podcast series! Like usual, we appreciate any feedback you may have for us.
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Pathways into Gastroenterology
Medical School → Internship → Basic Physicians Training (3 years Full Time Equivalent) → Advanced Physicians Training in Gastroenterology (3 years Full Time Equivalent)
Advanced Physician Training can be undertaken in Adult Medicine, Paediatrics or Child Health
Source: Royal Australian College of Physicians
Salary
According to the Australian Government Taxation Data, in the 2013-14 income year we had:
- 86 female gastroenterologists earning an average of $260,925
- 294 male gastroenterologists earning an average of $415,192
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