Annual leave is something everyone looks forward to. As a junior doctor your leave time is prescribed by your hospital’s medical workforce (taking into account your preferences) and if your partner is also a doctor then it’s a chance to finally spend more than a few hours a week together. Of course, getting concurrent leave is the key and the chances of this are greatly increased by requesting leave in the first half of the year. The Australian medical year starting in February, March is still very early so you’re unlikely to be in dire need of a long holiday away somewhere exotic that you’ve been planning and looking forward to for some time. You may plan to visit your unwell parents-in-law for instance. Important and enjoyable, but not necessarily the most adventurous of ways to spend your leave. To address this, here is a simple step-by-step guide to help you put the adventure into what would otherwise be an otherwise reasonably ordinary time away, based on what may or may not be personal experience. Step 1 – The Set-up Have your spouse book tickets with a low-cost carrier two weeks before you plan to leave. Book through a third party online agency that does not require you to enter any personal details other than the passengers’ names and genders. Ensure you are not required to enter any passport details at this stage. Do not under any circumstances check your passport’s validity or the visa-on-entry requirements of the country you plan to visit. Step 2 – The Twist Go to the airport with the one suitcase between the two of you and check this in. Present your passport to airline staff and wait to be told that you have only 6 weeks validity left on your documents but the country you plan to travel to requires this to be at least 6 months and you will not be flying today. Your wife, who is a national of said country, has no such problem and can go. Comfort your wife who, having had a very stressful month of 70-hour working weeks, understandably bursts into tears. Stay long enough to make sure she’s ok and through security before running downstairs. Step 3 – The Plan Ask your mum to call the passport office and work out where you need to go while you buy a Skybus ticket. Once she’s called you back and told you the Docklands address, get on the bus and connect to the free Wi-Fi. Fill out the online passport renewal application on the APIS website. Use Google Maps to work out where the closest Australia Post that takes passport photos is to the passport office. Realise they don’t print documents. Remembering a conversation you had a few months ago, sign up for a City of Melbourne library account, then use this to send your application to the cloud print server of the Library at the Dock. Step 4 – The Hustle Once the Skybus arrives at Southern Cross run across the bicycle flyover to Docklands (that you luckily knew existed from your First Aid volunteering at Etihad Stadium some years ago). Hit the Post Office for your photos, run around the corner to the Library and print your documents. Make sure you forget that your signature has changed markedly over the last 5 years from the carefully crafted calligraphy on the back of your driver’s license to the hurried scrawl that having to sign thirty prescriptions, outpatient notes, medical certificates, and drug chart re-writes per day has ensured your barely recognisable signature has become. The diligent librarian will, however, believe you are who you say you are when your stethoscope falls out of your bag during your rummaging. Needless to say, you must forget to remove your steth from your bag before leaving for the airport in the morning (who knows when it’ll come in handy). Step 5 – The Ante Take the tram from the library back to the passport office, sprint up the stairs and get in the enquiries queue at midday. Twenty minutes later, relate your tale of woe, only to be told that even with priority processing your passport will not be ready until Friday (it’s now only Monday). When you ask if there’s any way for this to be sped up, get told that an extra fee can be paid but this is only possible if the trip is for urgent travel only e.g. an unwell relative. Call your spouse who is waiting at the airplane gate and has since collected herself enough to send you the details of your parent-in-law’s illness, e-mail the documents to the passport office, then write your special consideration application on the appropriate form while standing back in line. Get given a 1245 renewal appointment because “you good boy, you have all forms and photos ready and make my job easy” as you are informed by the Eastern European accent of the motherly enquiries clerk. Step 6 – The Prestige Breeze through your interview (it possibly helps if when asked to elaborate on your occupation you answer that you’re a diabetes doctor and the DFAT agent’s parent happens to be a patient of your hospital’s diabetes clinic) and get your passport scheduled for pick-up the next day. Walk home (feel free to stop by Hungry Jack’s and get a free frozen coke with their app), open up your two laptops, phone and tablet to compare flight prices (two for Skyscanner, one for third party bookings, and one for the airline’s website; make sure all are using different Google accounts to avoid the direct-to-consumer demand advertising price-gouging), and book a direct flight for the next afternoon that’s only a little more expensive than the budget, non-direct ticket you’ve just burned (figuratively, literal burning would increase the adventure but also the risk). The next morning pick up your passport, get driven to the airport by your mum, jump on your non-budget carrier flight and watch three movies, drink at least ten beers, rum and cokes, and soft drinks, all while enjoying 4 seats to yourself on a largely empty flight. Don’t forget to smile when you’re questioned pointedly by immigration on your passport dated as that day, lack of baggage, and lack of return flight with the carrier you arrived on (again, the doctor thing probably helps). Finally get through immigration, joining your spouse less than 24 hours after they arrived the previous day.
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