{"id":1284,"date":"2023-05-17T12:48:13","date_gmt":"2023-05-17T03:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2024-04-16T13:23:50","modified_gmt":"2024-04-16T03:53:50","slug":"small-cohort-big-support-flinders-nt-medical-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/2023\/05\/17\/small-cohort-big-support-flinders-nt-medical-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Small Cohort, Big Support: Flinders NT Medical Program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flinders.edu.au\/flinders-nt\/nt-medical-program\">Northern Territory Medical Program<\/a> student Pumudi Abeywardana was not sure what she wanted to do while in school at Darwin High but after a placement at Royal Darwin Hospital, she was inspired to pursue a career in medicine.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Now in her second year of the four-year Doctor of Medicine (MD) through Flinders University, she couldn\u2019t be surer of the career path she\u2019s chosen. Pumudi entered the Flinders NT Medical Program through the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flinders.edu.au\/flinders-nt\/nt-medical-program#pathways\">Year 12 entry pathway<\/a>, where students undertake two years of the Bachelor of Clinical Sciences at Charles Darwin University before transferring into the Flinders MD.<\/p>\n<p>The workload has picked up this year with a greater emphasis on clinical work \u2013 in preparation for studies in year 3 and 4 which are clinical-based at hospitals and clinics across the Northern Territory.<\/p>\n<p>One of the advantages of the program for Pumudi is the small cohort with a supportive group of staff and lecturers who are happy to help and go over new information.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1464\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2023\/02\/pumudi-web2-1024x683.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"652\" height=\"435\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2023\/02\/pumudi-web2-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2023\/02\/pumudi-web2-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2023\/02\/pumudi-web2-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/79\/2023\/02\/pumudi-web2.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 652px) 100vw, 652px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>Our cohort is small, and so the element of competitiveness that I&#8217;ve seen from my friends who are doing medicine at other unis with big cohorts is not here because there&#8217;s 24 of us. Everyone wants to pass and become a doctor<\/em>,\u201d Pumudi said.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cSo, we&#8217;re really helpful towards each other and we can easily go to the teachers for any extra help.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s also glad she chose to study medicine at home in Darwin, and not interstate where she would be without her tight-knit support networks.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIt would be a nightmare having to be able to make weekly rent and then afford all the other expenses on top of being able to study every day. So, it&#8217;s an advantage having home close by,<\/em>\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Pumudi is looking forward to becoming a doctor where there was a breadth of career paths and roles she could work in.<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"rte-custom-style__font-family--circular-medium\"><span class=\"feature_heading\">Join the next generation of health and care professionals. Explore a life-changing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flinders.edu.au\/nt\">career in health<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Northern Territory Medical Program student Pumudi Abeywardana was not sure what she wanted to do while in school at Darwin High but after a placement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5156,"featured_media":1462,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4200,1625,3320,3215],"tags":[341,391,499,1667],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cmph-student","category-flinders-nt","category-medicine","category-ntmp","tag-college-of-medicine-and-public-health","tag-flinders-md","tag-flinders-nt","tag-flinders-university-rural-and-remote-health-sa-nt"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5156"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/mph-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}