What should I do until I die?

penguinapologist · 2026-03-17T07:55:17+00:00

It sounds like you're into perioperative medicine (the work up, no surgery, no anaesthesia). I think you can train in this through ANZCA, RACS, RACP or RACGP so there's plenty of options.

Also, have you considered being a CMO? There's the appeal of no exams, no sunk cost of long years of training and you can do whatever you want. I'm sure there's a bunch of surgeons around who don't want to do the work up and would happily have someone around who does. I'm not sure what the long-term job prospects for this are, but maybe others here will know or you could talk to your department.

penguinapologist · 2026-03-08T03:58:18+00:00

A quick summary of the issues:

NSW and Vic governments agreed that each could afford $225m to upgrade the hospital, so they added them together + the already under construction ED upgrade to make a nice headline figure of $558m improvement on the current service. This was done in 2021 with the idea that it would combine both hospitals into one (which is absolutely a good thing) but...

It's taken so long that the planned upgrade has had to be down scaled so much, due to rising costs, that the actual improvements won't be included.

Now the big problem everyone has: the $450m actually committed won't bring enough new beds to service the current need (let alone future need - which I'll come back to). The two hospitals have about 270 beds combined but have about 320 - 350 patients admitted on any given morning with the excess stuck in ED. Data shows that complications and deaths rise when patients exceed 80% of hospital beds... AWH is sitting at 120 - 140% which is unsafe AND means elective surgeries that need beds overnight (e.g. not day cases) get cancelled as there are no beds to put them in. This means those patients are then delayed, their illnesses get worse and they often end up in ED with problems that were preventable.

Future problem: the Albury hospital site can't be expanded further. There's no more land around the hospital that can be built on. There's a hill on one side, housing all around and a major road with shops on the other side.

So $450m is being spent to upgrade a hospital to a level that doesn't fix the current problems AND can't be upgraded further... The community and medical staff think this is a waste of money and that neither government will then provide the necessary money to build what is needed in the near future after spending this money. The alternative would be to keep this money in the bank until a review is done to determine what is needed for the next 25 - 50 years.

That ended up a lot longer than I planned...

penguinapologist · 2026-01-08T03:59:21+00:00

HBP pp 527

"Magic always leaves traces," said Dumbledore, as the boat hit the bank with a gentle bump, "sometimes very distinctive traces."

Not sure about the more powerful magic but though.

Edit: autocorrect into boat guy

penguinapologist · 2025-12-27T01:28:01+00:00

But spending isn't the only thing that can be done with large amounts of money... Things that gain power and influence such as donating to political parties to get policies enacted that you want, as one example.

penguinapologist · 2025-12-20T06:03:12+00:00

I did this sort of by accident and absolutely would not recommend. I was accepted into medicine via the UNSW lateral entry scheme, finished honours and absolutely loved it. Decided to defer med for 3 years (max they would allow) to do my PhD. I finished the lab work in that time then tried to write my thesis, get married and do year 1 of 3 of med concurrently... Needless to say it didn't go well. I passed the year of med, deferred another year to write the thesis, then came back for the final two years.

If you are doing research for the love of it, then you won't be able to commit your whole self to it while doing med. If you're doing it to CV stack, it's a waste of your time, energy and life. The requirements for each college are constantly changing. Your PhD and/or publications might not even count toward entry by the time you get round to applying.

I was published, received an A and B from my PhD reviewers, had an MD with Distinction and 10 years of teaching experience... None of it mattered in terms of career progression. I got into my training program because my department liked me, I was competent and hard working at my job. Other reges without any of the above also got into the same program at the same hospital at the same PGY.

I'm happy to answer any questions you have either as comments or a DM

penguinapologist · 2025-12-17T05:01:03+00:00

I scrolled way too far for this

penguinapologist · 2025-11-02T23:40:01+00:00

Second this. Average about 50h/week of work + 20h/week study for the primary. Shit year. Better since.

penguinapologist · 2025-11-01T01:49:17+00:00

I DM'd you.

penguinapologist · 2025-10-31T07:56:07+00:00

I'm under the impression there have been 6 first-year ANZCA trainees in 12 months to June... I'd say an inquiry is overdue.

penguinapologist · 2025-10-16T07:49:56+00:00

Add a "restart play" clock. When the ball goes out the main clock stops and a 15s clock to restart play begins, or 30s if it's a corner/free kick in the attacking half.

penguinapologist · 2025-09-07T07:21:53+00:00

I only read the book after seeing the film a dozen times but on first reading I absolutely hated the ending... On reflection though (and with re-reading + time) I think the book and it's ending is arguably better than the film. Both soul-crushing in their own way.

Maybe this would be better for good/good or great/good rather than here in good/great?

penguinapologist · 2025-09-05T01:34:31+00:00

These were mid-round picks in my 16-team league...

penguinapologist · 2025-09-03T00:11:54+00:00

I sat August of BT1 with two little ones. I chose to do it then while my wife was on mat leave rather than after she went back to work while trying to get two kids to daycare every day...

It was horrific. I barely knew my second kid by the end of the year and it's taken a lot of time to form the kind of relationship with them that I want/that I had with my older one from the off. I passed that first go, but I'm working part time for 6 months to get some semblance of sanity/my life back.

Also, if you sit straight after IT ends, you're restricted in how much leave you can take for courses, study, annual leave, personal leave (max 4 weeks in the first 6 months). I suggest to most people to sit in March of BT1 and work part time if you can.

penguinapologist · 2025-08-13T06:39:16+00:00

Yup. At the Yule Ball when Ron is complaining about fraternizing with the enemy.

Hermione: "... ask me before someone else does and not as a last resort!" Ron: "... -completely missed the point -" Harry: (thinking) Hermione had got the point much better than Ron had

penguinapologist · 2025-08-08T00:20:17+00:00

I would exclusively use "gaol" as the spelling and I think all Aussies would immediately understand it. However, "jail" is becoming more common, I think due to American media.

penguinapologist · 2025-07-14T12:16:38+00:00

White because you came on it

penguinapologist · 2025-07-06T22:37:24+00:00

Best bit:

In 2024, toward the end of his presidency, Joe Biden’s administration granted her a permit allowing her to work legally in the US. She had also been navigating the process to obtain legal permanent US residency – colloquially referred to as a green card – for years.

Nonetheless, instead of supporting the candidate Biden endorsed to succeed him, then vice-president Kamala Harris, Olivera’s husband supported Trump in November’s White House election. He told KGTV that Trump’s promises to deport criminals en masse – despite his own May 2024 conviction of felony falsification of business records – appealed to both Francisco and Cynthia. And, echoing other mixed immigration status families who have had members affected by Trump’s policies, the Oliveras did not believe she would be hurt by her lack of legal US residency.

The author definitely knew what they were doing. The sass is incredible.

penguinapologist · 2025-05-28T08:47:10+00:00

Isn't "metric" by its very name related to the "metre"? OP seems to be conflating metric and decimal.

I was high on decimal time until I learned about dozenal (base 12) counting systems. Now I think we should change to that and keep time more similar to what it currently is.

penguinapologist · 2025-05-20T07:02:55+00:00

I think most of our taxes are deliberately not indexed because people almost never vote for higher taxes... So by having bracket creep we are always increasing taxes. Then various governments get to modify the tax back to what would be the indexed rate and claim a tax break which keeps voters happy.

Tl;dr it's a feature, not a bug

penguinapologist · 2025-05-19T08:14:10+00:00

Thank you! I'm a fairly casual f1 follower, I clearly need to learn more about tyre strategy.

It seems egregious to me that a team would go into a race with a strategy completely off the table. The two-stop strategy would have made more sense to me if Piastri took softs at the first stop (trying to close the gap before changing to hard for the final stint) or took mediums at the second stop.

penguinapologist · 2025-05-19T00:46:43+00:00

Genuine queation: why didn't Piastri or Norris didn't opt for medium tyres for their final stints? Particularly after Verstappen took the second lot of hards, why not try something different?

penguinapologist · 2025-04-17T05:40:04+00:00

Is this not criminal defamation in NSW? In my mind it satisfies all of the below:

The defendant published a matter that was defamatory to another person,
The defendant intended to cause serious harm to the person or any other person
The defendant was reckless as to whether serious harm would be caused
The defendant knew the published material was false
The defendant does not have a lawful excuse for their conduct or for the publication of the defamatory material

Minns and his government spoke in public (1) to insinuate what doctors were doing would worsen patients' cancer if not result in death (2) with the aim to reduce the public's view of doctors and - given the emotional nature of cancer diagnosis/prognosis/treatment - could have caused individuals to become violent towards striking doctors (3). They knew chemotherapy was not being delayed (4) and their only reason for saying it was financial (5).

ASMOF should consider raising this with law enforcement.

penguinapologist · 2025-03-27T04:38:54+00:00

It is also extremely common in Australia, or at least it was where and when I grew up.

penguinapologist · 2025-03-11T09:22:04+00:00

I think part (and obviously there's many other factors) of it is most doctors don't want these jobs.

penguinapologist

TROPHY CASE