Okay, you cant really choose submajors. The course is pretty much set in stone from start to finish. There are no electives. Check out the cirriculum at this website
http://www.uow.edu.au/handbook/yr2008/ug/hbs/H08006100.html. That is all the subjects you will have to do over the 3 years. No picking and choosing. We don't do electives.
When you get up to doing medical surgical placements you get to choose what hospital you want to go to. A few of my mates are interested in paediatrics so they went to westmead childrens hospital for their placements. There they got to go on i think a burns unit, post natal and a few other places. They said it was a real eye opener. One still really wants to do it. I dont know so much about the other girl. Paediatrics from what ive heard is a lot of dealing with docs workers as most cases are neglect and abuse cases.
For my medical surgical placement I chose Shellharbour hospital. Interesting choice. When i was on placement i worked on the surgical/maternity ward, day surgery, theatre and recovery. At shellharbour their surgical ward's also connected to maternity. Which is awesome for students because it meant i got to play with new born babies all day. I kinda dodged my surgical ward duties by helping around maternity too much. Unfortunately shellharbour will be getting rid of the maternity ward soon so they can expand surgical. I also got to work in day surgery. Awesome fun. Admit the patient. Send them to theatre. Bring them back. I got to follow a patient through their journey by working in day surgery. So i admitted him. Then i went to watch his operation. There was complications during the operation so it was crazy. Then I went to recovery with him. (probaby my favourite place). Then after he stabilised I went back to day ward with him.
When you get into the hospital you will get a bit of a shock. In surgical and medical wards most people are not sick. Its just theres not enough aged care facilities so the place turns into a massive nursing home. Actually in surgical i think i only had 4 real surgical patients and the rest were just old people with gastro, uti's or no ability to ambulate anymore.
I have also worked in Karena private hospital surgical ward which was my favourite placement. Here most patients are a lot older because most private hospital admissions are covered by the Department of Veteran affairs. This means the place was a massive nursing home kind of environment with 24/7 nursing care. Lots of people were really just waiting for nursing home placements to arrise. However lots weren't. It was so hetic. There were people everywhere. I was allocated to at least 20 patients. Drama everywhere. Dementia, MET calls, not enough nurses, gastro outbreaks. It was just like the medical shows on TV. When people get old they tend to die. Which is what makes it so hetic there. They will seem perfectly fine one minute then BAM not breathing, vital signs are falling and everyone is a little freaked out. We are professionals but geeze theres always going to be that sense of adrenaline.
On the next week I rotated and was put on their rehabilitation ward. This was pretty damn boring. Probably because of my action packed week before. Rehabilitation is generally quiet because your patients are getting better they just need some physio to help them a little more. So your allocated heaps of patients but then they all shoot off with the physio for most the day. Its good because you have to be really organised in the morning to get them prepared before they leave.
So in my experience Karena private was a hetic placement but i learnt so so so much and the staff on surgical were fantastic. Funniest bunch of chicks I've ever met. Rehabilitation nurses were a little less welcoming to the students but still nice and put up with us. Shellharbour hospital was one of the most quiet cruiseiest placements anyone can do and the staff are ridiculously nice.
So if your interested in something you should base your preferences in placements around it. Like ask your tutors about what would be a suitable preference to put down if you like a lot of craziness or if you like the more laid back type. In the end your placement is what you make it. You picked it. And if you get a shit placement just try swap it with someone else. Lots of people are willing to swap.
Ive heard some horror stories though. Some of your markers or work collegues on placements can be a little bit racist or biased. You should probably try stick to places that would suit that as well. No matter what your ethnicity Id research the place your placement is in. This is not all because of staff. Some are fantastic. This is because you will also be facing a lot of racism from your patients too. I saw it in sutherland. No offence. Not from staff there. But the patients were generally some generation shire and were the stereotypical aussie. They were very standoffish to my multicultural student friends. One of my mates who is definitely not the stereotypical australian had to deal with it and was a bit up set at first but she said at the end of the week she was really really glad shed stuck it through because she said she managed to get the patients to open up to her eventually and apparently one even made a comment that even though she was dark skinned she was alright. Which is a pretty amazing breakthrough for a 80 something year old extremely racist billionth generation shire chick.
