Nice how ppl come to the forums, post just once, and think they're actually sounding authoritative.

Your post is riddled with misconceptions and flat-out errors. More in depth answers can be found by looking at entire threads dedicated to each of these topics, both here and at SDN.

Taking a 4-year running average, the tuition comes to about 24-26k per year in today's dollars (it was less 2+ years ago, a bit more this year, but economists are predicting a 10% drop in the AUD within the year) . Not cheap, but far less than US private schools or the worthwhile Carib schools. The cost of living is cheaper (outside of Sydney) than most the US, UK, Ireland or the Caribbean.

1) This depends on what you mean, as you're being overly simplistic -- docs get 60 points + another 10 for being in a needed profession, the most you can get under their points scheme. Getting PR isn't that difficult if you can get an internship year, assuming you want to stay. At UQ, students who have wanted to stay, have, by getting internship, usually in rural areas. But yes, if you think of Sydney as Australia, then you won't get PR via internship sponsorship.

2) if you were a first year resident in the US (or Canada), would you consider yourself to be "practicing"? If so, then you can certainly practice in Australia after graduating. If not, you're argument is non-unique.

3) once graduated as an int'l student, there is a 10-year moratorium which prevents you from getting medicare payments for 10 years. However, there are exemptions (i.e., rural areas and others not so rural with shortages). No medicare is problematic, but doesn't prevent practicing.

are you canadian? it's easy to get stafford loans as an american. canadians get private loans to cover their tuition, but i don't know about canadian govt loans. Ask markdc at SDN, he's up on this topic, i know he had to look around, but he knows of loans that cover all his costs.

harder than what? not harder than carib or ireland or uk or israel. you mean harder than if you go to a US school? well duh. even so, as with all imgs, it's not much of a hurdle if you're not going for one of the more competitive specialties.

if you're canadian, it is hard to go to canada, but that's also non-unique -- canada treats all canadian imgs with contempt

huh? first, define your term -- most schools now have some degree of "pbl". second, those who don't like change don't like the world-wide move towards more pbl. others do like pbl and like their docs (search for studies on the topic). you're chucking corn here, bud.

you "dont get why" b.c. you haven't listened much to the different reasons given on the forums, and they're the same as for those who choose irish, uk and israeli schools. keep something in mind: all these schools have N. Americans there by *choice*. I don't know of any at Carib schools by choice. Not that carib bad, but hmmm, something to think about.

your perception of the perception of the grad programmes here is truly warped. Even if it weren't, how would such a perception make it harder to stay? some prejudicial policy that you're making up?

to payoff loans, or to invest for int'l use, yes, would take longer. but cost of living is far cheaper, so income spent otherwise is worth more. Or if you're into the $, go to the Gold Coast as a GP and work for MoleScan for $300k+ removing skin malignancies.

indeed, money is not much of an issue for many who go into medicine. take this into consideration when trying to imagine why someone might choose to stay here (or in ireland, uk, or israel, or pretty much anywhere outside of the good ol' US of A). wow, such myopia.

um, you'd get PR while still an intern, at the latest. and your dollar figure is way off. try 45k while also still an intern.

utterly stupid, and meaningless, ranking.

thank god you won't be coming here.

-pitman