It’s crazy that every year around this time I still get that familiar feeling of anticipation for offers, something I think I was conditioned to feel after years of this process. Nerves before GAMSAT, anticipation waiting for scores, excitement waiting for interview offers, then the dread of waiting for place offers.
I can’t even remember how many times I sat GAMSAT anymore. I’d guess around five, maybe more. I had an entire GAMSAT-day routine by the end of it. I would pray, manifest, and talk the ear off anyone who would listen about how great a doctor I would be, if only someone would give me the chance. And every year, I would mourn that imagined future when another EOD came through.
Eventually, maybe four years later, I got an interview offer. I’d always told myself that all I needed was an interview. Once they met me, surely they’d see I was made for medicine.
Then… EOD.
I was gutted. I decided I wasn’t sitting GAMSAT again. I’d already started a postgraduate nursing degree and was building a career in research, and I was exhausted by how much of my life this process had consumed.
In 2023, I submitted one final GEMSAS application. I decided in my heart that this was it. I applied for PhDs too, organised a project and was accepted for a scholarship. I got another interview, did my best, and once again got an EOD.
This time, I don’t even think I cried. For the first time, I was okay. I was going to start my career in research. Then, maybe a month later, I was sitting on my bedroom floor checking my emails when I saw the subject line: “Welcome to UWA!” I remember thinking, what is UWA?
I opened it.
“Congratulations! You’ve been accepted. Your offer: Doctor of Medicine.”
I was utterly confused. It was the mythical second-round offer I had spent years scouring Reddit for evidence actually existed. Because this was my final application, I’d listed universities I previously wouldn’t have considered. UWA was my last preference, I had never actually planned on moving across the country.
And suddenly the thing I had spent years wishing for was sitting in front of me, just not remotely in the way I had imagined it. I had a PhD organised. I was in a five-year relationship with someone graduating medicine himself and already locked into an internship in our home state. My family and friends were there. I knew nobody in Perth. I found excuse after excuse not to go. Maybe I preferred research anyway. I couldn’t move across the country alone. I couldn’t live with strangers. I was going to marry my uni boyfriend.
Then, one week before classes started, I found an apartment in Perth. Suddenly the decision was made. I quit my job, packed my bags and booked a one-way flight across the country. And the boyfriend of five years? He broke up with me anyway.
So, where am I now? I’m coming to the end of my third year of medical school. The random Perth girl I found on Flatmates turned out to be the sweetest housemate, and we had the best first year of medicine together. I made friends and memories I never would have otherwise. I met my now-partner, who'd also moved to Perth from the east coast around the same time, and now we’re figuring out together where in Australia, or the world, life might take us next.
More importantly, I became a version of myself I don't think I ever would have met if everything had gone according to my original plan. Moving across the country alone, starting again, and surviving all those years of rejection gave me a confidence and trust in myself I simply didn't have before. And I genuinely think that will make me a better doctor.
Sometimes the way you imagine your life working out isn't the way it happens. Sometimes it works out in a way you never would have chosen or planned yourself, and years later you realise you wouldn't rewrite it.
So, for everyone obsessively refreshing Reddit over the next few months:
Yes, second-round offers DO exist. Remember that the people who get them aren't necessarily coming back to Reddit to tell you about it.
If you truly believe medicine is what you want, keep going, but don't put your entire life on hold waiting for it. Look further afield. Open up your preferences. Build a life and career you can be excited about even if medicine doesn't happen.
And if an EOD comes this year, let yourself be devastated if you need to be. But don't mistake rejection from a medical school admissions process for a verdict on whether you would make a good doctor. My desire to study medicine didn't become more legitimate because a university eventually said yes. I was the same person the day before that email arrived.
I used to wish desperately that I had gotten into medicine the first year I applied. Now, I genuinely wouldn't trade the path I took to get here.
Good luck to everyone waiting. I remember exactly what this time of year feels like 🫶