Exploring new horizons

Hi I am Sharatt, I am from Bangalore, India and I live in beautiful Tauranga New Zealand.

I had just completed my basic medical schooling in India and I was looking for opportunities to train abroad, I always wanted to train abroad.

I’d always wanted to visit New Zealand just cause I knew how beautiful it was and then when I got here it was, I really, really liked it and said I want to give it a shot

 I knew that I had to do a local exam here which was quite expensive at that, that time.  I came on a 3 month visitor’s visa so my sister and I came together, so we did a bit of travelling initially and then I took the exam say about a month and a half later.

So when I did find out my results my visa was almost up - so what I did was I wrote to all the DHB’s saying hey I’ve come here, I’ve done my exams, I am allowed to work here…  And it so happened that Tauranga was the first hospital that wrote back and said you can come back, you can start next week.

So I took a bus, came here for an interview and basically that’s how I got in to Tauranga and I’ve never moved since.

Sam and I knew each other, were not from the same medical school but we have common friends so when I went to India after a couple of years on a holiday things sort of hit off from there , and that’s how it happened so we,  mmm, well I made, to the best of my ability I sort of tried to paint a picture of what life would be like here - cause she was a doctor as well and I could, I could tell her what to expect and what she needed to do to get in to the system here.

So Enal was born 8 months ago which was amazing and that was just after I’d finished my training in radiology and the timing couldn’t have been better and I’d found a job as a consultant in Tauranga so things were looking up.

Now that she’s 8 months we are slowly thinking about what schools or what day cares and things like that.

I mean what you want in life is to not get burned out by your work.  That’s the balance one strives for especially in a field like medicine which is always so stressful with long hours,  and I think, I think Tauranga in that way is amazing.

You could still go and the beaches are close by, you can have a stroll by the beach and still feel you’re on holiday while you’re still at work so… 

Well, if you’re thinking about coming to New Zealand and if you’re a medical professional I think I would advise you to do your research, cause New Zealand as a country to work in is amazing. But you do need to do a lot of exams and go and pass those to be able to work here and, and get an opportunity to work here you’ll find that it’s absolutely amazing and just like me you’ll probably not want to go back.