Variety is the spice of the intern's life, and for variety you can't do better than a major city teaching hospital such as The Royal Melbourne.

"The Royal Melbourne has a solid reputation for postgraduate medical training,'' says intern Dr Rahul Chakrabati. ``Being one of three trauma centres in Victoria it has extensive opportunities for critical care medicine, which is what I am interested in and being a tertiary centre it has a diversity of clinical specialties allowing exposure to a lot of areas of medicine and varying complexities of cases.''

Like many young doctors, Dr Chakrabati was drawn to medicine by its blending of science with human interaction."`It is a very diverse career,'' Dr Chakrabati says, "it allows you different options. Particularly now as an intern I am getting to experience many areas of medicine. Critical care is one

I have an interest in. I haven't commenced my emergency term yet, but that will give me a bit more exposure. You are involved in making clinical decisions that are directly related to a patient's health in an acute setting _ often life or death situations _ and it is also an application of applied physiology which is something I am also interested in.''

Modern hospital medicine is increasingly cooperative, Dr Chakrabati says. "It is a multi-disciplinary environment, that's a great thing about the Royal Melbourne, our senior colleagues are registrars, the consultants are very useful, providing guidance for our decisions and also you have multi-disciplinary staff such as allied health. Without them managing patients from a holistic perspective would be very difficult.''

In the end, hospitals and medicine are all about people, as Dr Chakrabati says: ``The most enjoyable part of my day must be reviewing my patients and making a difference to their health. That's the main thing, the focus for us is the patients.''

 Dr Alex Voskoboinik, also an intern, knows where he wants his career to take him. "I am interested in physician training, in particular cardiology, which is one of the main reasons I came to the Royal Melbourne _ it has a fantastic physician training program. Being on a general medical unit now I can see that all the registrars have daily tutorials, daily lectures and are well supported by the consultants, and they have outstanding pass rates.''

The appeal of becoming a physician is that "It is a combination of being able to apply diagnostic skills as well as having greater patient interaction.''

The size of the RoyalMelbourneHospital presents no problem to Dr Voskoboinik. ``At no point have I felt isolated, I have felt well supported, you work closely with the other teams.''As Dr Voskoboinik plans his future, he can look back and say, ``It has been exciting and stimulating every step of the way.''