By Julia Earle
As your PGY1 year draws to a close, you may be thinking about next year, the specialties that interest you, or simply how to get through the final weeks of a very demanding year.
If you’re looking for a structured way to think through your next steps, reconsidering your direction or approaching a career transition, engaging a career coach can be particularly helpful. It’s one of our recommended ways to reflect on your experiences, explore your options and clarify what matters to you.
Why engage with career coaching early?
Your internship experiences provide useful clues about the work you enjoy, the environments in which you thrive and the skills you want to develop.
Coaching can help you:
Reflect on what you have learned from your rotations
Compare specialty pathways and plan future rotations
Identify gaps in your knowledge
Prepare for applications and interviews
Respond constructively when an experience affects your confidence or plans.
A career coach will not choose a specialty or make decisions for you. Instead, they will help you test assumptions, understand your priorities and identify practical next steps.
Support throughout your career
You don’t need to wait until you feel stuck to engage a career coach!
Engaging a coach early in your career helps to get you on the right track faster and gives you useful tools for ongoing reflection and support.
The questions you bring to coaching will change over time. You might seek support when applying for training, reconsidering a specialty, stepping into leadership, returning from leave or exploring non-clinical work. Later, coaching may help you consider a portfolio career, reduce clinical work or plan for retirement.
AMA Victoria’s career coaching services
AMA Victoria provides career coaching for doctors at different career stages. They’re designed to fit into your busy schedule and delivered by an experienced in-house team focused on personal and professional reflection, supported decision making and practical outcomes.
As an AMA Victoria member, you can explore our career services.
Julia Earle is a Senior Career Coach at AMA Victoria.