Dr Chris Sia is a renal medicine registrar in his second year of advanced training. Like many of us, Chris found it difficult to decide what he wanted to specialise in – he only decided on Renal during his second year of Basic Physician Training. In this podcast, he talks about the thoughts he had and how he came to decide on his specialty. He then goes into detail about what working as a renal physician involves – from wards to clinics to the occasional procedure (such as biopsies) which people usually don’t think about when wanting to go into renal medicine.
This interview also covers the difficulties that come with working as a renal physician. As Chris says – “Renal is like gen med but your patients are sicker.” He discusses how advantages of renal medicine include being able to maintain a wide knowledge of general medicine since patients with renal issues often have a variety of other illnesses, however, this also means renal patients are more ill and the rate of mortality in renal is quite high. As a result, the type of people who want to do renal should be quite resilient and patient.
Dr Sia also provides his opinion on organ donation and the importance of its role in renal medicine, and how he sees this issue developing over the next five to ten years. We discuss job applications and how extra degrees or research can help in this regard. Dr Sia believes the field of renal medicine is becoming more popular and talks about the average time frame of getting into a training program.
There is so much information in this podcast – We hope you guys enjoy it! Feel free to leave us any feedback or send through any questions you have.
If you have any other questions you’d like us to ask Dr Chris Sia, fill out the form below or shoot us a message!
Pathways into Renal Medicine:
Medical School → Internship → Basic Physician Training → Advanced Training in Nephrology → Consultant
Source: Royal Australian College of Physicians
Salary
According to the Australian Government Taxation Data, in the 2013-14 income year we had:
- 52 female renal specialists earning an average of $155,133
- 96 male renal specialists earning an average of $298,681
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Great podcast! Thank you! Very insightful into the life of a renal physician and tips on developing as a junior doctor!