$237 000 for a degree?!!

I was just reading the Australian website, as I like to do on mornings when I get the time, and I came across that tasty little bit of news. It got me to thinking about how much I owe, and will do at the end of the year. After 8 years at uni I will owe somewhere around the $45,000 mark for my degrees.

When I saw the $200k + figure, all I could think was, that is so not worth it. What does a degree really give you? I think the idealistic would suggest it gives you the knowledge to work in your selective career successfully. Personally, I think that's a load of bloody bollocks! None of the tuition I have received has had the slightest bit of use in my career. Everything that actually had an influence on my abilities in the workforce, came from getting unpaid work experience off my own bat.

Everything I am battling with doing my UQ medical degree now, is about hoop jumping. Learning how to answer pointless questions, that if I had access to the internet at the time I could look up in 6 secs. Who really gives a crap about essays on what it means to be a GP? How is that going to make me a more effective doctor? How does that teach me skills which will make a difference face to face? If it wasn't for the fact that I have been doing my clinical years in the rural school, effectively doing an apprenticeship, I think I would have spat the dummy a long time ago about being a Doctor.

How can any university seriously charge such ludicrous amounts of money when they are not delivering vital skills?

Every single person with a conscience who goes into medicine deals every day with the insecurity that they are going to be inflicted upon the community at some point, and they may kill someone. I might add that it has been a long held colloquial belief that the mortality rates at public hospitals always spike at the beginning of the year when interns start working. I believe that my hospital is doing their best to prepare me for the dramatic change of roles that await me in the transition from medical student to intern. I don't think that it is something that they should justifiably have to do. Good luck to them too, in succeeding in as little as a week of orientation. No, I think it's certainly time the education we receive is held accountable for it's shortcomings. There is no way the Australian health system can become one of the most admirable in the world if we continue to short change our young doctors.

We need more hands on, clinical one on one training. As long as senior consultants become disillusioned with the public system and universities, they will shy away from teaching and the quality of the knowledge pool will continue to dwindle. I would never accept paying over $200k for the degree I am about to receive. As it is I am seriously considering staying in rural areas for the next 5 years just to take advantage of a federal HECS reimbursement scheme to pay for my MBBS.

The time for a major shift in how medical training and the health system functions is drawing closer every day.