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Hi. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. And we'll just wait a few more minutes just to let them a few more people log on and then we'll get started. Okay? Okay. Great. I think we'll get started. Can everyone here me? Someone can just pop in the chat to make sure that everyone can hear me and we'll get started. Um, and then hopefully a few more people can join in a bit later on. Brilliant. Thank you. Sue for replying. Um, so my name is Eleanor, one of the ambassadors for the F three series. Thank you so much for joining us tonight for our first episode in the F three series. 2022 2023. Um, tonight we'll be talking about everything you need to know about an F three in Australia and this episode, this sort of series of the F three series were running over the next four weeks. Every Wednesday, um, at seven o'clock. So make sure you join us and check out our medal site and register for our next events next week. We're talking about the locum f three and the port. Um, there's three series is brought to you by the portfolio clinic and the portfolio clinic is a really great mentorship scheme, which is completely free. You can sign up as a menti and you'll be allocated to, um, mentor, and they'll give you personalized feedback on your portfolio, how to improve your portfolio and also help with specialty applications. So if that's something that you're interested in, please check out our website, the portfolio clinic dot com. Um, I've also noticed on the registration is that there's quite a few people joining us internationally, which is really great, and we're starting sort of alongside are mentorship scheme. We've also got mentorship scheme for international medical graduates coming to the UK Um, so you know, Please check that out and have a look at our website and and see what that's about. That's something that interests you, Um, someone that you are likely to meet if you do sign up with a portfolio clinic is Dr Max Roderick, who is our menti coordinator. And he, um, will allocate you to, um enter in the specialty that you're interested in pursuing. Um, Max and I went to, uh, Australia together and did an F three and F four together over there. And Max is very kindly prepared as a presentation tonight to hopefully tell you everything you need to know about how to get the most out of your out of your F three in Australia. So over to you, Max. Uh, thanks very much. Thanks very much. Everyone for joining. And thanks for the introduction. Um, so, yeah, I also one of my rolls on the ent coordinate for the portfolio clinic. So I think some of you might have met already in your initial consultation. But tonight, I'm here to talk to you about F three and abroad F three and in particular, going to Australia. Um, some of you might be thinking about it some of you might definitely want to do, or some of you might might not know exactly what you want to do. Um, so I'll try and answer any of your questions. And if you have any questions throughout, if you just pop them in the chat, and then we can answer them at the end. Um, and some of the pre presentation questions um, we've got and we will try and answer them as we go through. Um, so I'll just start the presentation. Now. Um, so this is just a fairly brief presentation, and there'll be a time at the end for questions. Um, what I'll do is I'll cover my experience in Australia and why I went, Um, what I did there, um, the pros and cons of it and the health care system in Australia and how it differs from the NHS in particular what it's like to work there. Um, also location of Australia is a massive continent. Huge changes in climate. And you get a different experience depending on where you go. Um, then I know a lot of you guys be quite interested in the application process. Um, what's involved when you start applying, we've got a bit of a timeline as a rough guide. Um, and so you kind of need to know. So you know where you need to be? Um, and then I'll talk about low coming in Australia. And so it's not actually something you can do in the first year, but you've got to watch the year there to do that, uh, and then talk about the fun stuff traveling. Um, and then we'll sort of get onto questions at the end. Yes. So I moved to, um I'm currently doing clinical fellow year now in the UK Um, I moved to Australia with Eleanor after f two, um, and we actually an F three and f for that. So we stayed for two years. During the first year, it was we worked in a and, uh, and pediatric, and in Brisbane, Uh, and the second year was local work all over Australia, so that gave us a really good opportunity to travel. So working for different Australian states, Uh, and a lot of travel with in Australia and New Zealand. Um, Now I'm back in the UK to pursue training. Um, so try to resist the urge of showing you some of the pictures, but there'll be a few throughout, and just to give you a taste of kind of what it's like, um, as you can see, they're Sydney some the cricket, swimming, the whale sharks, which is amazing experience in in in Blue Reef in northern western Australia. And the bottom middle picture is Brisbane, the city where I was, and on the bottom left. There's also the roof, and I'll talk about these kind of as we go through. So the main, I guess the main reason is kind of why to go to Australia and the pros and cons of going. Obviously, it's on the other side of the world. So it's not, you know, not an easy step to make, um, even if it's something you know you want to do for a while. Um, probably one of the biggest things I think is is that chance to step off the treadmill because you're always from when you start medical school, you're always on to the next thing you doing exams. And then there's F one F two. There's, you know, some going straight into training. And then there's every time there's a hurdle to get through and just taking whether whether you do something else completely different for F three, I'd probably definitely advise doing some sort of F three just gives you a bit of time to figure out exactly what you want to do. It gives you some time to figure out how you're going to get there. Um, obviously I'm quite biased, but I'd say in Australia is a great way to do that. Um, the other thing is from a career point of you having that experience working abroad and working in different healthcare system, you definitely get a lot of experience. A lot of, um, time seeing how how different ways there are to do it and and seeing Obviously the difference is the N H s and some things I've seen and be like, Oh, that's amazing. That's what something I want to bring back to my practice here and some things you say. Okay, I understand why we do it the way we do in the N. H. S and moving on to the fun stuff. So climate, generally, Australia has really, really good climate, and it's great if you really enjoy the outdoors lifestyle, particularly into any hiking, running, going to the beach, anything like that. Um, the work life balance is is significantly better there. Um, a lot of people will touch a little bit later, but a lot of people up for a and the rotors, and they tend to look after you better, and you tend to get more time off and you generally feel a bit more well rested over there, um, being a massive continent and being close to New Zealand as well. You've got loads of opportunities for travel, and the pay is better as well. Over there, uh, outdoor lifestyle. We've, we've mentioned, um, the main drawback of the things to think about distance from family and friends. Now, obviously, it's not just like it's down the road. It's a 24 hour flight, pretty much, and for me, going during coated, we didn't have the option of coming back at all. So it was not seeing your family for 18 months. Two years, which is not something to be taken lightly. And, yeah, you can catch up on the zoom and everything, but it's not quite the same. It will be a bit better now for people going next year. Um, but it's something to consider. You're not quite as close to your family and friends If things do happen, um, it can be isolating at times for for those reasons as well, depending on where you go and we'll touch on that in in location, you can. There are some places have loads of British people there. So when we started there, about 2025 British medics, British and Irish medics at our hospital so it was very social. From that point of view, everyone sort of starting if three together. Um, again, what we'll touch on is the high initial costs, um, and the paperwork and the application process, which is a bit of a drag. Okay, so the Australian healthcare system, it's, uh, separated in public and private. So the public system is called Medicare, which is generally quite similar to the N h s. Um, it was also very well funded. Um, they do have some of the problems that the NH A s has generally speaking, Um, but they're probably not quite as stretched as we are. Um, there is also the opportunity to work in private hospitals. Um, but it's probably worth checking when you're doing the application process and looking at hospital websites about the public and private hospitals, Uh, and how they differ. Um, a lot of places also struggle to recruit doctors, especially in the more rural places. Um, there's obviously a lot of people want to work in Sydney in Melbourne. Uh, and it's harder to get jobs in these areas, but it's easier. So if you want to work up the coast in Queensland or Harvey Bay or canes or or somewhere a little bit more remote whilst also having sort of great climate and great beach life. Um, the other good thing is that going to Australia, the If you've got a UK medical degree, it's generally quite well regarded. Uh, although it does take quite a while to go through the application process, get verified and everything. Um, the key thing is you don't need to do any exams to go over there. Um, that's if you're going to sort of an F three and F four job, which is a significant barrier that that's not there for that. Yeah. So the other thing I was going to say Is that just a bit more about the Australian healthcare system. When you go over there also, as an individual, you would be covered by Medicare. You kind of apply to that. So you've got healthcare cover while you're there for what they do. Actually, is they have a levee for hire a nurse, so you pay an extra 2% for Medicare, which is an incentive for those people who earn higher incomes to get private health care insurance, which on a population level actually takes some of the pressure of the public system, and this means they have a much bigger private sector than we do in the UK So this is a really useful slide for particularly those of you who are looking to move out there and looking for a job applications and that sort of thing, because a lot of these posts will be advertised and you'll be like, You look at it and say, Oh, hang on. What? What does that mean? This resident medical officer, Principal house officer? And how does that relate And what should I go for? Um, so, generally speaking, in Australia, they the medical grades that you go for and the level of your training is P G Y. So that's years after graduation. Um, so obviously, if I one would be a p g y one p g y, too. And that's kind of split into various different ranks, like we do in the UK, But generally, an F one in Australia would be an intern or a J. A M o junior medical officer. The jobs that you'd be applying for would be usually the resident medical officer, so that covers kind of to F three, that sort of thing. And they often use senior House officer that same as we did in the UK But generally the jobs that you go for the r m o jobs. Now the important difference between Australia and UK is actually set you up to a registrar quite quickly. So you can be sort of, you know, p g y three p g Y. Four. And people are stepping up to be junior registrars where, as far as you often have prolonged may have three or four s h o years. So just be aware if you apply for P h o jobs, you will effectively be a junior registrar. Um, so it depends. It may be that you're more experienced and you want that sort of role. Um, but if you just be aware that if you apply for pho jobs, you will have a significant amount of responsibility, I would probably recommend if you are applying as an F three to take a job, and it's fairly easy once you're out there. Once you've got your registration, once you get your visa, um, if you wanted to change and step up after six months, 12 months? You can definitely talk to the hospital about that about that. But I think the the are in our jobs would be the ones that I recommend to go for. Um, and the other thing is, the Australian Academic year runs January to January. Um, obviously, this doesn't necessarily stop you from most British doctors when they go out there starting August, so they also have an August intake. But for those of you who might, you might not be sure what they want to do. And I want to send the UK for a bit. You can apply for that January intake, giving you a bit more time. And sometimes hospitals have more jobs available for that window, so essentially August or January that you're looking for. So in terms of the job opportunities, what you can do out there, there's a There's a wide range of things. Um, I think most people either do A and or they do kind of a junior clinical fellow or trust grade medicine or surgery job. Uh, the advantage of A and D is that it's quite flexible, and if you're going out there with a partner or friend at some hospitals that when I was at, it's possible to get a paired writer, which is really important out there, because it gives you the opportunity to travel on your days off. So obviously, if you're working completely convicting rotors, you're out there in this beautiful country and you don't always get time off. So having a paired rotor was a really big thing for us, and I know it was a really big thing for other people out there. Even if you're just going out there with one of your friends, that means you got someone to travel with them. Your days off. Um, there's also we have a few friends who did in Brisbane and Melbourne, Trust grade medicine and surgery jobs. They were variable. It's probably worth when you're applying to. Hospitals are looking at trying to speak to someone or, if you know someone who's done it before and reading the what's involved in the job application first. Because sometimes I have some friends in the surgical aspect which worked very, very long hours, often working hard when they were in the UK, and if you're you're going out there for the lifestyle it's probably something you want to avoid. Um, but then again, you've got to work out what your priorities are. Uh, base it from there, The other options. So the top two just spoke about a and and trust grade. The other options are probably a little bit later, after you've done, if you're someone who's looking to do maybe up to two years out there, your options so you can do like a burning like I did. You do need your full apple registration. So you need to have done 12 months working in Australia first, and after that period, you apply for you for that registration, and then it kind of opens up a lot of options. You can join the local agencies you take over your visa, Uh, and it gives you a lot of options in terms of where you can work. And there are loads of jobs going all over Australia, and we'll touch on that in a in a later slide. Um, the other things you can do is if you you're thinking about staying out there for a few more years or if you have it so much you want to stay out there permanently. You can look at training out there and you can do registrar training and the easy ones to get onto for a U. K. Doctor over there is a and he is easy to get into. And then you can do the equivalent I m. T. Which is called basic physician training, or BPT out there. We also have some friends who did some regional medicine experience. Um, which sounds quite interesting. Uh, it's not a little bit scary. Sometimes you're the only doctor for some of these remote towns out in Australia, and they take you on a crash course before you go. So they may be like, Okay, here's how to your C section. Here's how to intubate. And he's had to do a few other things. You know, there's someone on the end of the phone, but you're four hours in a helicopter from the nearest help, so some people love the idea of that, and some people would run for the hills. But you do have these options, especially after you've done your 1st 12 months in Australia. Um, and in terms of the length of time in Australia, I know a few of you were asking about this. And while it's possible to do different length of time, I think probably looking at 12 months minimum would be best to get the most out of it. And in all of our friends who stayed out, I think most people stay there for two years. We had a few people who stayed there for a year, and it was slightly cut short due to everything going on with codeine at the moment. But if you can get a full 12 months, that's that's probably a good minimum to aim for. Um, looking at, I think it was a question about doing six months out there, so that's potentially tricky because, um, the hospital you're going to is sponsoring your visa, so they're paying a few 1000 lbs to get you there. On the top of that. Often they do pay your flights, so it's got to be worth it for them from that point of view, not saying they won't do it. But it's worth clarifying for your hospital, and you'll definitely have more of a chance if you say I can do nine months, 12 months, so location. This is probably the first thing. If you thought you want to do an F three. You thinking I do want to go to Australia and what you want to be looking at is working out where you where you want to work. Because, as I mentioned earlier, there are a lot of different different options and your experience. Well, it depends on kind of where you are. So I guess first of all, you want to work out. If you want to be in a city or you want to be somewhere not necessarily really remote, but somewhere else, um, either along the coast or in a small town inland, and that also affects the kind of medicine that you get. We worked in a day and in Brisbane, so very metropolitan center. So we got a lot of things you get here. We also worked in a cardio respiratory center, so we saw a lot of chest pain, a lot of chest infections, that sort of thing. And we didn't see as many as what we think. You know, snake bite, spider bites, crocodile bites, that sort of thing. If your after that and probably worth going up north, Cairns is quite good for that, Um and there's lots of other places up the coast if that's the sort of experience that you're after. Um, alternatively, there's, um, other places. If you go to Melbourne and Sidney, you'll get a similar experience, sort of that that city experience at work and then outside of it, um, also climate. If you're the sort of person that loves hot weather, then there's lots of places for you in Australia. Just be aware that down South, especially Adelaide and Mom can get quite cool winters so it can be down to four degrees so it can be fairly similar to the UK there. Um, so if you're thinking or one summer, you know, for the whole year it's probably worth looking at a little bit higher up probably further north and Sidney Brisbane, where we were really good for that winters would be about 20 degrees blue skies, fairly consistent, uh, actually more more pleasant than summer sometimes. Um, another thing is whether you want to be near a beach or not. Um, some places, obviously Sydney's breaks. It is a city and a beach. Um, Melbourne does have some beaches, but it's a bit harder But there's a lot of other places that you can look at when you do the research for hospitals, Um, and Perth is another one We had a few friends to go to. I think they always quite good at picking up British doctors, and there are a few job vacancies there. Uh, it's a great city and it's Western. Australia is absolutely beautiful. The only thing is it is a bit isolated from the rest of your up for doing all the East Coast travel. It's about a six hour flight. So I guess it was the time it takes to get from here to North Africa or something like that. Or maybe not here to the States, something like that. So, uh, just bear in mind actually, how big Australia is and how isolated some places are. And if you're off the sort of sun beach life, Gold Coast and Sunny Coast are really good. They were quite close to Brisbane, so we went there quite a lot. And so that's probably an option for you. If you're off to sort of just want to be by the beach or you're into surfing or that sort of thing So this is also quite important. Slide. So for those of you who are thinking about Australia, just a very rough time line about what you need to be doing at certain times. Um, obviously, things do change over time, and this is what I went through about two years ago, and but I think it would be roughly the same. So the first thing you want to be doing probably around now, next month or so is, um, identifying the location where you want to be and then especially you want to do, um, and then in December to January around that time, you want to be having a look online, looking at hospitals, checking their website. So a lot of them have either the email for their admissions, a person on the website or they have online kind of application system You can do usually most of them. Just make sure you've got a CV prepared, a cover letter, um, in the cover letter. It's worth saying sort of why you want to be moved to Australia, why you want to work in the hospital. It always helps. Um, there's also the option to register with agencies now we didn't do this. We don't There were a few people who did this. I don't know many of them, though, but it is an option. Um, sometimes it makes things a bit easier with the paperwork and everything that you have to go through. But it's worth making some inquiries. If you want to go through the agency rather than directly with the hospital, then looking probably around February to March, that sort of period will be when they tend to have interviews. So this is all for an August intake August start. Um, tend to have interviews, and they can be quite variable. I think in my interview, fairly straightforward questions was like, How do you manage? Just any. Tell me about the patient you've seen with Abdul Pain. Um, and then you'll also get sort of more generic teamwork management questions. Um, I think I had something like, Tell me about a difficult situation with a colleague. Tell me about the time he made a mistake, but it's worth preparing for those and twos to give yourself the best chance. Um, then march to April, fingers crossed, everything goes well and you get a job offer. Um, The key thing here is to start your paperwork early. Um, so as soon as you get a job offer, we'll touch it in the next slide. But there's you have to go through the APRA application, which is effective the same as GMC. And then you've got to go through Visa big flights. But these things take a few months to go through. Um, so, yeah, April to May. You're looking at applying for Visa May to June, uh, booking medical. So you need a medical before you go and clean blood from the chest X ray. Um, and they all need to be approved by a doctor before you can go. So this is the kind of nitty gritty of it. I'm happy to toe answer more questions on this at the end, But once this is post job offer, so what you need to go through afterwards, And so, essentially, there's three elements to it. So there's the pre opera, um, a lot of this. They have a very long winded way of verifying your medical degree. You've got to set up to online accounts. You got to go through a criminal history check. You've got to get official documents notarized, which does kind of go on and on. And it is a fair amount of work. Just so you're aware. And you also need a certificate. Good standing for the GMC. So this all takes a few weeks to get sorted. Um, once you've started that, they verified your degree. You gotta be sorted, you get an A M C. Number, and then you can use this to apply for the GMC equivalent. Um, so you get your MD number, you fill in your app reform. Just bear in mind that your hospital will probably help you with this, and it's probably worth just contacting your the admissions person at the hospital. And then it often takes about six or eight weeks to come back. So this is what it's really important to start early. So you can really get out there when you want to. Not. We know a lot of people who got delayed because there are problems with the paperwork. Um, and then visa. There's a few other steps that you have to go through. Um, they need to know the date. What dates? You been abroad in the last 10 years. I don't know why, but something they want to know and the visa you would be looking at is a 48 to temporary school shortage visa. Um, and then you can. Once your visa is approved, you can put your medical, uh and importantly, don't book your flight until you've got your visa. Um, because a lot of people that might be an issue with the visa coming back. So it's worth Just wait until I can go through until you get your flights. All of this. It's probably worth trying to your hospital coordinator because they're different. Hospitals may have slightly different ways of doing this, so just so you've got an idea of how much it's probably expected to cost. So there are a lot of fees getting everything sorted. This is even before you get out there. But you're looking kind of that figure at the bottom for all the costs that you're going through. So you will learn this back if you do a fair amount of time out there. Um, but just so you're aware, that's the sort of cost you probably need over the course of the next kind of nine months, sort of thing. I'm just going to kind of all the things we spoke about in the last slide. So, yeah, now, now on to the fun bit. So the second day I was out there did low coming and you need your general preregistration. As we said, you need to 12 months out there. Um, so obviously it's worth worth thinking now about whether you want to do that before as well. And a lot of people just do. Three. But a lot of people, in fact, quite a few people weren't quite sure when they went out there. And most people when you ended up doing that before, too. And there's a lot of opportunities. Like we said, if you do do an F four out there and there's a huge range of locations responsibilities, so you can step into those p h. O and register our roles if you want to, Um and obviously with more responsibility and there is a higher pay as well, um, quite flexible with the local work as well. And it's great if you really want to take time to travel or what they also do is a lot of the agencies will pay for your accommodation will pay for your flights. And sometimes they may even pay for a high card so you can travel to a place to get a stint of work there, then tag on a bit of travel after that and turn a working stent into a holiday. Um, and then the only thing that you need to pay for is your one flight back at the end of that that you get a lot of it included. So it's something to think about. With that, um, I'd highly recommend low coming. I think that's the time we really got to see a lot of Australia. Um, when you're working, obviously you get five weeks leave a year and you can see things on your weekends. But if you really want a good chunk traveling, um, with the funds to do so, it's something that really recommend. So this is just an example of something we did. So I went to Tasmania. It was a one month local job in a town in the north and Tasmania called Lawn System, uh, and effectively doing E S H O jobs, Uh, four days a week on the rotor, about 10 hour shifts. You always have ridges and consultants around, so you're fairly well supported. Uh, and they paid for accommodation. Hicon flights. Um, obviously, the traveling is great. You get to see a lot with it, but also, there's something to be said about low coming in different places. Kind of what I said at the beginning. Like you get two different experiences. Different hospitals work, how different different places treat different conditions. And then you may also get the kind of weird and wonderful stuff, like certain, actually, all snakes in Tasmania venomous. But you get some species of snake you might not get in elsewhere in Australia. And then you get another kind of animal injuries and things as a kid in there, by the way, in the bottom left, which is a little bit like a hedgehog, Um, but they're they're really cool, and they're only seen in some parts of Australia. It's really cool to see one of them in Tasmania. Um, in the bottom, right. That's Weinglass Bay. Beautiful place in inflation in Tasmania. I would highly recommend going to Tasmania. Actually, if you do go to Australia, it's kind of a mix between sort of New Zealand, Scotland and Canada, that sort of thing. And it's sometimes a bit of a breath of fresh air from a hot, hot Australia and up in the top, right? That's the walls of Jerusalem National Park. So this is Western Australia. Um, so it didn't actually do a locum job there. But use the time low coming to go traveling there. And so a lot of the places you can. It's very popular to do camp planning that so you can get a camp. And it's a great way to to around the country. Unfortunately, not it's not very well connected by public transport, obviously, because it's quite a large place. So you do end up driving quite a lot that, um, on the left is this a four wheel drive we had with the rooftop 10 4 wheel drive on the sand dunes? Um, that's me and quicker over in right next island off birth in western Australia. I'm sure you've seen everyone with the obligatory selfie with them, but it's definitely worth a visit if you're over there, Um, and again something. I mentioned the beginning. Probably one of the best experience I had was swimming with these amazing whale sharks, which are about 4 to 5 m long, effectively similar to like a basking shock. And so they're very dose are very friendly. But you're in the see with these huge creatures, and it's a pretty breathtaking experience. And the other thing on the bottom, right? These are the bungle bungles up in the Kimberly's in Northern W. A, and also that picture down on the bottom, right on to the left, some incredible kind of rock formations. And they're only actually discovered by Europeans in the in the 19 eighties. Um, so there's just amazing scope of travel in Australia and then New Zealand. I guess a lot of you will also be thinking about going to New Zealand for an F three, but it's probably a whole different talk. Great thing about being in Australia is that you can hop over to New Zealand. It's only about three hours on the plane, and you can kind of experience that amazing country. Um, both islands are are incredible, but particularly South Island as well. I thought was was wonderful for the scenery that has an offer and and some of the best hikes and outdoor activities. Um, so the photo on the top left is the friends Joseph Glacier, and you have the opportunity to do a hell a hike there so you can get a helicopter up to the top of the glacier, and then you can hike on it, and you get these views, which is just absolutely stunning when you look at them. Um, and one of the top right is Milford Sound. Um, that, again is, is a beautiful place. You've probably seen photos that before, Um, and that's me hiking on the water there as well. Um, the bottom two are elsewhere in the south. I don't think Mount Cook and the other one is the Corolla, which is very beautiful, as you can see there. So I think in summary, um, obviously I'm slightly biased, but it's an incredible experience to go out there, and it's something you probably never really get again in your life, especially if you go down the training pathway. Um, and other things also in in life come around. So it's a It's a really unique opportunity. I think you have after if to where you're qualified as a doctor, you can do something before you. Specialist, um, I think Australia is kind of a great thing to do where you can work and get medical experience, work somewhere else, you know, do things for your career and then also have this amazing opportunity to travel on the other side of the world. Um, obviously, the climate is great as well, and again, depending on where you go. Um, but it can be after a lot of sort of rainy winters and and great winters, it's sometimes really, really nice to have be able to wear a tee shirt and shorts the whole time. Um, wide range of medical experience. Yeah, especially if you like. Um, um, if you travel around and if you do different jobs as well working in slightly more remote places to, um, again the travel, the flexible local life that we've spoken about and the other obviously other things to bear in mind. And are you comfortable with spending sort of significant time away from your friends and family? Um, obviously, there is the option of them visiting. Um, but it it's a 24 hour pain right away. It's something you need to bear in mind. and then, as we're going to discuss all the costs of the paperwork and that sort of thing. So it's not for everyone, Um, and it's not set to be taken lightly. Obviously, you're completely Uprooting your life and putting it down elsewhere for a bit. So it's those things to think about. And then, you know, we obviously do have a few friends that have got permanent residency out. They're applying for it at the moment who want to stay there permanently. So there is that option. And if you're that way inclined and if you love it so much, Um but, yes, it was a great experience that really, really enjoyed it, and you get some good medical experience out there as well. Um, it's also quite useful for kind of a portfolio point of view as well, and depending on what you want to go into, but you can keep a log of the experiences you've done. You can get an educational supervisor we have when we were there, so you kind of have up to date meetings with that. And if you want to do audits, you can potentially research and things out there. So you can also work on your portfolio while you're out there just to keep everything ticking along, Bear in mind applications in the next year or so. But, yeah, thanks very much for listening, everyone, and I'll hand back to I don't know, brilliant. Thanks so much, Max. That was a really informative talk. I think we have a few questions that have come through in the chat box. So keep them coming through and we'll start going through them, if that's okay with you, Max. So the first one we've got is about permanent residency. So it says, How quickly in general can you get permanent residency? Um, so I don't know, fully the answer to this I'm just sort of based on experience is that my friends have been through It does take a while. Um, you I'm not sure if you can apply from it straight away. Um, but if you are interested in doing it, it's worth applying as early as possible. And there are also effectively immigration lawyers that it would be best to speak to you when you get out there. So what I do is get your 4 80 visa go out there on a job and then touch base with a immigration lawyer. Uh, and they can sort you out. You're very, very lucky as a doctor, because Australia very keen to have you. Um, so it's good to start early from that point of view, because the application can take a while. It's also quite expensive, so I think we've got a few friends who are applying at the moment. There's a few upfront costs, but also it can take, you know, a year bit longer to get the permanent residency to come through. Another question about PR is can you start? I m t slash pt training in Australia without permanent residency? Yes. So you can we? We have a few friends who have done that. You can start the e d training. Um, they will sponsor your visa. Generally, if you're in a job, they'll sponsor your visa. So for another year, Another couple of years. Um, I'm not sure what happened, sort of when you're at the four or five year mark, but you can definitely start it, and there won't be an issue. Generally, if you've got, they'll cover your visa, um, for that period, but obviously be looking after that, then you'll be looking at permanent residency. I think the other thing to say about that is quite specialty dependent. I'm one of my friends, is currently applying for permanent residency so that she can apply for a pediatric training out there. So, pediatric training, you need to have permanent residency before you can apply for it. But that's not the case with the I M. T e d equivalent. Um, another question from Steven as well. Also along the visa line is would my partner nonmedical be able to piggyback on my temporary skill shortage visa to work in Australia, too? So, based on our experience, we have a few friends who one of them is a doctor. One of them is, uh, non medical. Um, there are It is a different visa that you have to get to my knowledge, but you can get visas that will cover your partner when they're out there as well. I don't know a huge amount of the details, but they do exist. And it would be a different visa. Yeah, that definitely would be an option from from our experiences of people we know. Um, sorry. Just asked Why did you come back to the UK? Uh, that's a great, great question, Sarge. Um, no, I think, um, a number of reasons, really. I think obviously being away from your family and your close friends for quite well does take its toll. Um, I think also from a career point of view, and certain specialties are easy to get into over there than others. So I want to go down the surgical route, and and it is quite difficult going into surgery out there. So you have to do a number of effectively S h o years because they don't have a national selection program. You have to work at the same hospital with no guarantee that you'll get a trading post after that. Um, so you're actively working very hard. You're not having the lifestyle that you went there for. Um, so it's something to bear in mind. And also, I think there is something about the UK as well. It is what it is, you know, Rainy. There's a lot of things wrong with it, and everything seems to be going wrong at the moment. It is home in a way. So spending time away, kind of Clarify that a bit in my mind. Yeah. Um, next question is, if you have New Zealand citizenship, does it make getting a job easier? I don't know. I think probably given that they are so close geographically. And I, you know, recall working with a number of healthcare professionals from New Zealand, and I think I think it it may make things easier, but that I'm not entirely sure on. Um, yeah, I don't know. Um, the next question is, will you be sending us a copy of the slides? Yes, of course. So this whole event is recorded so you can catch up on the recording at any point that you want to and within the metal frame. The other thing is that we have a document which we basically summarized the key points of what you need to do. And if you do want to go to Australia and it's gone into a little bit more detail as well, and we will be uploading that on too onto the medal page as well. After the after this talks, you can definitely check back in and have a look at that. So yeah, So that answers that one. Um, how much more money do you make as an F three in Australia compared to F three in the UK? Are we talking double three times etcetera. So I think that's, uh, an interesting question. I think it's fairly difficult to answer because obviously it depends where you work, what grade you work out. Um, the things to bear in mind is that they're quite good at paying your over time. So if you work, particularly were where we work for A and A, they were much better than the kind of exception reporting has been here. From my experience and a lot of places in A and A you'll get every time you worked on Saturday, you'll get time and a half. Every time I took a Sunday, you'll get double pay. So it makes it a bit easier being at work on a Sunday, Um, in terms of compared to F three in the UK I guess if you were doing just a salary sort of S h o job, I don't know, I think I mean, it probably wouldn't be double maybe sort of 50% more of that sort of ballpark, but I wouldn't be able to put an exact figure on it. But when you start low coming, if you really if you're that way inclined, that's when you can. You can earn a significant amount of more than you were in the UK Great. Another thing about costs. What are the living costs like in comparison to the UK? Um, so living costs are probably It's strange. It's higher for certain things, but also some things are cheaper. Like when we got out there, I think fuel was like less than a dollar, which is like 50 per liter. Uh, obviously it's gone way up now, but probably in general, I would say slightly higher, but your wages higher than that. So you have a bit more disposable income. I think the other thing about that is oddly buying food in the supermarket is really expensive, But going out for dinner, um and drinks is quite good value as well. I think because it's generally an outdoorsy and sociable sort of place and there is, it's actually we found we would eat out, I don't know multiple times a week, because it was just sometimes more cost effective, which is also more sociable as well. Um, another question. How much time did you tend to get off at a time with your throat and A and E. Was it enough to travel for a few days between? Yes. So I think this is again comes back to the location. So where you are and also what your job is like and how flexible day. And obviously, it's difficult to say because you might have a road to coordinator who is great and we'll give you time off together. Or you might be like one day on one day off, which makes it a bit tricky. Um, what I would say in our experience, we were quite lucky that we had a road to coordinate. It was quite accommodating. He would often give you, you know, three or four days off at a time. You say we work in your four days a week, but it would be being that kind of ballpark and the you could definitely do trips within that I think obviously think about where you're going to be. Um, so obviously, if you're somewhere like Perth, it may be harder to say, you know, go over to, uh, Melbourne or Sydney for a few days. But if you're someone that has a lot to do around it, so a lot of traveling. So Queensland is particularly good for that. So you can go to Byron. You can go to Gold Coast, same coast. You go in and the mountains, you go to Brisbane, Fraser Island, within sort of. You could have 23 days to do those trips. Um, that's where we were. There were a lot of other places that have that. So it's somewhere to bear in mind where you're going to be so you can make the most of not only the five weeks of leave you have but those little kind of 23 days either side. Brilliant. Um, I heard that there's also intake around February as well. Apart from August, do you have a higher chance of getting a job of applying in August than February? Um, so, yeah, there's definitely that January February intake as well. That's when all the Aussies start. They start their term in January like all the interns would start. Then I don't know if you have a higher chance of getting a job. I think if you're keen to go, I would I would just go. But if you just depends on your personal circumstances when you would rather go, to be honest, I think another thing to add to that is because the academic year is January to January in Australia. They tend to have juniors that will sign up two jobs and then start them from January and then, for whatever reason, decide to quit midway through the year. So they do. A lot of places have this lull naturally in the middle of the year, which happens to perfectly coincide with when British doctors looking to go out there. So there is often you know, that availability of jobs in August September time, which they're not necessarily going to be able to fill with Australian doctors. So that's when they do tend to get a bit of a cohort of British doctors to come over to fill that gap and help with staffing towards the second half of the year. Um, so next question, you mentioned earlier that certain specialties require more S H O years worked in August or getting PR in order to proceed with specialty training. Do you know roughly how many years that would take, Um, I think that's a difficult question to answer. Um, obviously, like we said, it's specialty dependent. So So if you want to do surgery or peed, it might depend. I don't know if you have any kind of insight on the cells. Um, I think probably the best piece of advice would be to look at the so they're called, like colleges over there, like they are in the UK and maybe to have a look at the college website in Australia for the certain specialty that you're interested in applying for and see if they've got any information on it there. Um, like we said, I think because every specialty is different wouldn't be able to, um, advise you entirely on that. Sorry. And at the point you're working as a locum after 12 months, can you leave EKG for a couple of months and come back? So, yeah, I think the important thing here is that generally you've got to have someone to sponsor your visa when you're out there. Um, so when you're working for hospital, usually they'll be sponsoring your visa, um, to leave for a couple of months and come back. You'll need someone to sponsor your visa when you come back. Um, possibly what you can do is speak to local agencies and explain your situation. And so I want to leave and go back home for a couple of months. But you probably have to, you know, agree to do a couple of months to work somewhere when you come back. Um, that's probably more bearing not judging from our experience and experience with my friends, that would probably be the way around it. Um, the other option is, if you did 12 months and then you do two months and as a locum, then they'd be pretty happy for you to go home for a month or two and then come back and do some work. Yeah, I think some locum agencies I know the one that we were with had, um, a requirement of 12 shifts a month. Was it 12? I think I think it was 12, but it was a loose requirement. I didn't say every single month you have to do 12 shifts. You could put that all in to say, two months and then have two months off, which is what we did, and you could use that two months off to to go home or go traveling or something. So there's definitely there's a lot of flexibility within locum agencies to do that. Definitely. Um, any experiences of sexism or racism at all in your time there? Um, I guess. Yeah, that's a That's an interesting question. Um, I would probably say that again. Everywhere you go, whether you're the UK without any other country in the world, there are examples, and unfortunately, you do come across that from time to time. Um, it's probably something to to bear in mind about everything going on with the Aboriginal population in Australia, and that's not necessarily something we see in the UK. But there is a quite a significant divide between the white Australian population and the aboriginal population, and there can be kind of tensions among there. So it's worth sort of reading up and knowing a bit more before you go. Just about cultural differences, how things have kind of come to be the way they are and what's going on at the moment to try and fix those things. But that's something we definitely I didn't know a huge amount before I went. But you learn a lot about it and for you uncomfortable truths and things. And and it it affects you on a date today as a doctor, when you a different healthcare seeking behaviors. Um, sometimes the average population will have a lack of trust in the medical professions because of what's happened in the past. Um, so that's probably something to to really think about when you go out there and and just, I guess educate yourself a little bit. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um, some other questions, please Feel free to keep them coming through on the chat. I just got another couple of questions that come through to me. And how did you find moving between hospitals for local work? Did you have eye t logins where they're similar? I t systems in each hospital, et cetera. Oh, yeah, The classic Starting at work and not having any logins but expected to be doing on calls. Yeah, Unfortunately, whether you're in the N h s or on the other side of the world, those problems do Do you still exist? And I think, yeah, the thing to bear in mind with low coming. Well, yeah, it does sound amazing. You know, you get to travel a lot, you get paid well, etcetera. Like often every day does feel like your first day. So especially if you're moving around a lot and doing it for travel and something to bear in mind. You will have that. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know where anything is. Don't know the referrals process, et cetera, et cetera. With the i t system. So a lot of the systems were different that we used around that, Um, and then for a lot of the jobs, you'd have to get different sort of vaccinations and all the different vaccinations. But getting your evidence towards that be learning all of that between jobs. Um, so there's that definitely to bear in mind, But I think that is probably outweighed by the fun stuff. Working new places, traveling, just meeting new people, that sort of thing. Yeah, I agree. Um, and another question is, you mentioned the Australian taxes. Can you reclaim these if you move back to the UK after f three f four. Um, so obviously, you've got to pay tax. Um, first of all, so you. I think the countries are quite good if you you basically get a tax file number when you're over there so you will be paying tax, um, as as an earner, as as a visa holder in Australia. Um, the way it works with the tax year. Obviously, with the UK, it's sort of April April in Australia, it's June. June, Um, you do end up getting a tax rebate because you've worked the proportion of the year in one country and not, uh, x amount above or below the threshold. But you do benefit from getting a tax rebate from that sort of thing. But obviously you do pay tax and you do pe sort of higher rate of tax on the higher income. Um, the other thing to talk about on this is also your super, which is basically your pension that you learn over there. You can, um, you have to pay into your super, and your employer will will contribute a certain amount, and you can get that back after you come back from Australia. But that will be taxed as well. About a third for the visa were on, but sometimes it can be taxed higher. Yeah. Brilliant. Okay, um, it doesn't look like there's any other questions coming through on the chat, so we'll probably call it a day at that. Um, so if you first of all thank you so much for all coming along and listening and and thank you for all your really interesting questions. And thank you, Max, for coming on in your presentation. It was really helpful, hopefully to you guys who are hoping to go to Australia. And don't forget to fill in the feedback forms. Um, at the end, that will mean that you get your certificate, which should approve that you've come to this. Um, like I said before, we have a document which basically goes through everything in detail and sort of step by step process of, um, how to go about doing how to go about, you know, all of the admin and paperwork and things. So we'll upload that to the to this event on medal after this. And I think, lastly to say And if you liked what we've done here today and you're interested in an F three generally and still not sure what you want to do, then please try and tune into our our other episodes that we've got coming up in the next few weeks. So make sure that you come along next week at seven o'clock to the local CF three. Max, do you mind just switching this slide? Yeah. Yeah. So, um, come and see our local F three talk next week where we've got to really great speakers coming to talk about their to slightly different experiences low coming. And so hopefully you'll get some good insight there. But thank you so much for joining us and hope you enjoy the rest of your evenings. Thanks. Thanks for listening, everyone. Okay, Bye. All right.