Specialization

i'm interested to know which route for specialization do we have for medicine. is it compulsory? what difference does it make with or without specialization?

To answer your questions:
1. It depends on where you want to practise - the routes vary according to country.
2. Yes and no, again depending on your location. The short answer is no, but some countries consider general practice a specialty in itself, necessitating specialisation unless you want to work in junior posts all your life.
3. I would have thought this would be rather obvious. Expertise in a particular area of medicine, independent practice at the end of specialisation, perhaps a bit more earning power, a certain time investment in training all come to mind, based on the assumption that in your particular location GPs don't need any specific training beyond what is compulsory.

okay, say i want to specialise in either the us or uk. how long and how much would it cost approx? which line of specialization is 'hot' at this moment?

[SHuLy]

how are the opportunities to do postgrad for medicine in UK?
are grads from more "prestigious" unis preferred over the other unis? or is it based on one's capability (whichever context that means, i'm not sure)

Shuly - see my earlier posts on the other thread on UK unis.
To the other Guest, or Guests - change your username, it's confusing!

The ORIGINAL guest

Guest,

Please do register yourself in Recom. I think if anyone do not register and would like to post anything, the name 'Guest' is assumed.

It is indeed confusing and we are not able to distinguish you between the original guest and any other guests who do not register as well.

In fact when you register, you can adopt any nickname and if you do not want your email address to appear, you can click to hide it. For registration, you will need to provide an email address. Just click .register at the right hand corner and then follow through the form filling with the required info.

You have been so helpful and your postings have been so informative - first hand knowledge to us and we look forward to see more postings from you.

[Steppe]

The above post is from me - did not realise that I was not logged in.

If one is not logged in, the 'Guest' is assumed. Please do register yourself with your preferred name/nick name whatever and remember to log in when posting.

Cheers.

To all the other Guests: actually, I think you can pick a username even though you're not registered - only if you leave it blank will Guest be used as a default username.

The real McCoy :)

[SHuLy]

Shuly - see my earlier posts on the other thread on UK unis.
To the other Guest, or Guests - change your username, it's confusing!

The ORIGINAL guest

would you be able to specify which thread? quite a number of threads in here

[Steppe]

Guest has written something about that in the thread of Interviews/offers to UK med. school (started by you). If I remembered correctly, he has mentioned in 2 posts regarding what specialisation, what are the hot specialities now etc.

[masdie]

people, does identity matters that much? what's wrong with being anonymous? being a guest? i don't see any answers for that poor "guest's" question. maybe you people scared him away.

[masdie]

hello? anyone here?

[sarahfoo]

Hi there. I am new here and a doctor wanna-be. :D

Anyway, I read somewhere that for doctors graduating from non-EA countries intending to do specialization, they must first undergo the PLAB test unlike those graduating with Birtish medical degrees which do not need to sit for the PLAB test.

I also understand that there are some exception, ie doctors from some recognised universities in Australia, Singapore and India are also exempted from taking the test. Does anyone have any info on this? Where can I check which universities are given the exemptions?

Sarah -

The GMC is the body which organises the PLAB tests, and also the regulatory body for doctors. The info you need should be on their website www.gmc-uk.org. The PLAB is needed for foreign (read: non-EU) grads to practise in the UK. You will also need to do the IELTS exam (a general English test). This last requirement strikes me as very weird, because a lot of non-EU unis conduct medical courses in English, whereas universities in, say, Poland do not. But that's the EU for you!

There is a move now towards not granting exemptions - again, the GMC website has more details. You will definitely not be given one if you are a recent Malaysian grad - this is probably testament to the mess our medical schools are in now.

Guest - as to what specialties are hot, that largely depends on where you want to go to train. Cost - minimal as you will be paid while training. There are of course the exam fees though, which are not insubstantial...

[sarahfoo]

Thanks for your help, guest.

Opps sorry... Yeap you're right its EU (European Union)

Anyway, regarding the exemption, when I read the newsletter, it stated (1990) behind. At first, I did not understand what it meant. So now, I guess it must mean graduates before the year 1990 will be exempted from taking the PLAB test. However, they are still required to sit for IELTS paper.[/list]