Hi guys, I'm from Glasgow. Just wanting to wish you all good luck with your applications for 2012! Although I'll be starting my medical degree this year in England, I had a chance to recently speak with one Glasgow graduates from this year who was discussing the changes that is being brought in for the new medics.
From what most people will be aware of, Glasgow has been performing pretty poorly in the student satisfaction ratings every year for a while now. One of the biggest criticisms is that graduates haven't had any real structure in their teaching/training while at Glasgow so have gaps in their knowledge in some areas. The head of undergraduate medicine (who was a GP) was sacked along with head of year 3 (also a GP). They have both been replaced with physicians. The head of year 5 had also been replaced although this may be a temporary measure due to sickness. The Glasgow course was very GP oriented which is ironic as they had been criticised for producing good specialists but not good GPs as they lacked the core knowledge required.
1st year is meant to be quite unaffected except there will now be proper structured anatomy teaching which runs from years 1 to 5 (including cadaver dissection, prossection, and computer designed learning). The anatomy teaching progresses onto radiological anatomy, CTs, etc. I took part at a PBL session a few months ago at Glasgow Medical School and they were saying that they aren't necessarily cutting down on the PBL now but there will less PBL sessions at the start of the first semester of the course before moving up to the usual range of PBL sessions per week.
3rd year should be a completely new structure for the course with a particular focus on core medicine. Previously the medics were in GP clinic placements each week but they will now be attached to specific departments in order to develop their clinical teaching.
In years 4 and 5, there was previously 5 week blocks for placements but this is going to be moved up to 10 week blocks in specialities now. It will be a requirement that everyone will have to experience working in A+E now.
Anyway I'm sure that more and more details will be publicised pretty soon. They all sound like really positive changes being made. Glasgow is a fantastic city to live in and the university is definitely one of the most beautiful things about Glasgow (including the incredible Wolfson building which has quite a hospital feel to it once you get upstairs).