Now that you're entering the final years of medical school, it's time
to start preparing your transition to becoming a real doctor.
In Australia we call this the internship but you might
refer to it as other things like your residency or
foundation program depending on where you are in the world.
Now the requirements for applying for an intern post vary
a little bit depending on where you are, but one
thing that's most common and one thing that you will
need to consider is having referees for your application.
So in this section I'm going to talk about how
you go about finding referees, what sort of referees you
should consider and of course how to list our referees
on our resume references and required for intern applications in
most States and territories of Australia where I'm from, but
they're not required in certain circumstances.
In new South Wales, if you're going through the general application
says buddy, if you are applying in new South Wales for
the rural preferential system, they are required.
So basically in most situations in Australia, medical students do
need some referees.
So what exactly is a referee Basically a referee is
someone who agrees to have their name and contact details
listed on your application and resume so that the selection
panel can contact them to ask questions about you.
These questions might just be to confirm that you are
who you say you are or they might go quite
a bit deeper seeking to validate things that you say
about yourself on your application and resume to get a
better feel for how you operate from another person's perspective.
So that's pretty important to choose your referees wisely.
More about this soon.
Now the first thing you should be thinking about before
you get to selecting referees is to be thinking where
you might be applying for with your internship and checking
out all the requirements that there are including what sort
of documents you may need to submit and what sort
of information you need to provide.
In general, you will need to submit the names of
at least two people who can vouch for the fact
that you've been a medical student.
It's generally wise also to have a third referee just
in case.
Now, in most cases it's okay for your referees to
be supervisors that you've worked with a faculty member or
even a professional member of the medical school staff.
It's best to have at least one medical professional as
a referee on your resume in a few cases.
In certain countries outside of Australia, there may be required
for all of your referees to be doctors, but that's
usually not the case.
So again, you need to check out the actual requirements.
What sort of referees are they looking for Now let's
talk about how you can approach potential referees as a
medical student.
So here's my suggestion for how you should be going
about collecting referees.
After you've completed a placement or a rotation, you should
consider approaching your supervisor as well as other members of
the team to ask if they would be happy to
act as a referee for you.
Explain to your supervisor carefully that you don't need them
to do anything else at this.
It may even be that they just need to be
listed as a name on your application.
So write down their contact details, including the correct spelling
of the name, their title or position in a hospital
or facility that they're at and their best email and
phone number.
It's preferable to get a mobile or cell number.
Now they're happy to give you this.
That's great.
Tell your referee that you may need to contact them
in a few months time to act as a referee for you.
Make sure that they don't get too carried away now
and start writing your letter of reference unless you truly
think that they might be useful in my experience in
most cases, referees for internship hosts and not actually contacted
or just contacted quickly to verify you are who you
say you are.
So that might just be an email, or it might
just be a form that they asked to fill in.
Now before you end this rotation, think about the other
members of the team.
Who did you get on well with Who did you
respect Could they also be a good potential referee for
you Think about specialty training doctors and nurse managers and
allied health staff.
Repeat the step you've just gone through with your supervisor
to ask these people for a reference.
Pretty soon in a very little amount of time, you'll
have a bunch of options for referees for your resume
and application.
Just brand recognition for medical student referees.
Now some people say it's a good idea to collect
the names of well known people as your referee.
You might call this going for brand recognition on your
resume.
In my experience, particularly for the internship applications, it makes
very little difference whether you have a well known person
on your resume.
What is more important are a few other matters which
I term recency, relevancy and diversity.
I feel these are the three key principles that matter
for all types of doctor resumes including medical student resumes.
So when selecting your referees, it's a good idea to
think about these three key points.
Let me go over them again.
That's recency, relevancy and diversity and let's unpack that a
bit more.
So what do I mean about recency Well, recency is
about having referees with UpToDate knowledge of your performance.
This is normally a requirement for any job that the
person considering hiring you gets to talk to your most
immediate supervisor or at least someone who's known you in
the last 12 months at work.
Now, as a medical student, you probably have a number
of options there.
Try to ensure that your referees have had some contact
with you in the last couple of years and in particular, make sure that
one has had a really good view of your performance
in the last few months.
Relevancy, well, relevancy is about someone's speaking to the role
that you're going into amongst your referees.
You ideally need one or two who have an idea
about the job that you're going to perform.
Now, clearly for a prospective intern, this means having at
least one doctor as a referee, but thinking about this
more deeply, are you perhaps applying for a rural internship,
for example If so, it really makes sense to have
at least one rural doctor as a referee who can
talk about your aptitude for rural medicine.
Finally, diversity.
Diversity is probably the most often overlooked criteria.
My opinion, you don't need to have all doctors on
your resume and these doctors don't need to be all
male consultants over the age of 50 a good way
to show that you can work well in a diverse
health team is to have a range of referees on
your resume.
At least one male and one female is a good
start.
But think also about registrars as well as nursing staff,
allied health and managers.
Often these people get a much better look at.
You then have a consultant would do so they can
make a more effective referee anyway.
And the other thing to know is that often on
the selection panels for internship roles, you do have nurses
and allied health and managers and they do respect the
fact that you choose to put non-doctors down as referees.
Now for referee will be a good referee.
Look, I'm often asked how to tell whether a certain
referee will be a good referee.
So really the best way to assess whether someone will
act as a good referee for you is the direct
approach.
Ask them, ask them what they would say about you
if they're approached for a reference from someone that they
respect.
Most people will be honest with you.
If someone feels like that they can't give you a
great reference, they will probably tell you sorry, and in
doing so, you'll likely learn something vital about yourself that
you can improve on for the future.
It's worth noting, however, that you probably don't want someone
as a referee who tends to be really overenthusiastic about
your performance to the point where you don't feel your
merit at all.
Their praise.
This may come across as lacking in authenticity when they're
rung up for a reference.
For a recent literature review that I was involved in,
there was some small, very limited evidence that choose the
more junior or younger referee may provide you a more
positive reference.
But honestly, I wouldn't make this the key criteria for
choosing your referees because that's the say the evidence was
small in that study in its significance at best.
Finally, you're probably wondering how to go about listing your
referees on your resume.
So let's talk about how to list your referees.
On your medical student resume and example of how you
might list your referees is as follows.
Oh no.
You want the name, their title, where they work in
a mobile number and email address for contact.
You don't need to include all their qualifications and information,
but anything that relates to your job application.
In this case, we're wanting to work as a rural
doctor and possibly become a physician is relevant if it's
unclear from your work history or education history, how this
person knows you, make sure this is explained as well.
So remember, recency, relevancy, and diversity.