← all questions · Choosing a specialty
Honest, and then visibly useful on the term you are actually on. Faking interest fails because the people you are faking it to select trainees for a living. It is also pointless: ACD's privacy consent lets the college contact anyone you have worked with, and it picks which referee to call, not you 1.
Say the true thing, then behave well anyway. The consultants answering this question are the same people who sit on selection panels, and their position is unanimous: they would rather know, they can tell when you are performing, and knowing lets them make the term useful to you 3. A registrar or boss who knows you are radiology-keen will point the imaging at you on the ward round; one who thinks you are faking renal enthusiasm will not 3.
The structural reason honesty is the safer play is that references are not a closed set you control. ACD requires six nominated referees across three tiers and then decides itself which one to contact, backed by a signed privacy consent letting the college approach anyone you have worked with 1. RANZCP weights referees at 15% of its national selection rubric 2. Your reputation on a term you did not care about can still reach the panel for the specialty you do care about.
Where the caution is real. A minority of bosses do take it personally, and the sub has the receipts — people report being told they clearly do not care about the current term after naming a different specialty 4. Two specific traps recur: telling a GP their specialty is your backup, and announcing a competitive specialty on a term you then coast through 4.
The phrasing that works is honest plus a reason to be here: name the specialty, then name what this term gives you that you will use later. That is a structure, not a script — do not go looking for lines, and do not ask the sub for interview questions, which is against its rules.
Counter-argument. If you are still deciding, say that. "Interested in X, keeping an open mind, enjoying this term" is true for most PGY2s and reads as honest rather than evasive 3.
r/ausjdocs — community view, not policy; verbatim, cautionary beside positive where both exist, every quote linked to the comment.
A minority of doctors might have negative reactions if you state you're interested in certain specialties.
Being honest but still engaged has made teams look for opportunities for me related to the specialty I want to do
I have verbatim had a surgeon say "oh so you don't give a shit about any of this" in response to me saying I was psych keen
I'd much rather my juniors be honest about what they want to do. Every now and again someone tries to feign interest because they think it's what I want to hear, but believe me you're not fooling anyone
Asked 8 times on r/ausjdocs (title-regex count) · encoded by hand from the numbered sources, retrieved 12 Sept 2026; no AI wrote any of it. how the count was made
asked_count = posts in r_ausjdocs_posts.jsonl (19,145 posts, 2022-09-13 to 2026-09-12) whose title matches /(honest|lie|lying|tell the truth|say|admit|disclos).{0,50}(specialt|career (plan|goal|intention)|what you want to do|interview)/i. Quotes are the top-scoring answers in the honesty thread, paired so two consultants arguing for honesty sit beside two reports of it going badly.