Best University For Medicine

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Originally posted by Unregistered
lse for medicine ???

Yes, they offer a 29 minute Medicine crash course just outside the public toilets at LSE, once every decade. Their requirements are usually 18 Us at GCSE and 9 Us at A-level before considered for an interview by their top-notch janitors. Very limited places too.

Reply 21

lou p lou

cambridge the best for medicine? me thinks not- yeah it may be the best uni in the country- but i hav a few friends on their medicine course + although they love it, they say the terms are too short for the course (particularly the 2nd year) + it's not as gud a course as that of places like newcastle + edinburgh.
anyway how dod you decide which is the cest course in a league table? cambridge possibly has the highest employment levels for students, but it just depends on the person on the course really.

Reply 22

Unregistered

I reckon Cambridge probably isn't the best place for medicince - the terms are too short for you to really practice a more vocational subject. Also, it would be ridiculously competetive. Different unis place different emphasis on different aspects of the course. I know at Cambridge they try and cram your head full of knowledge, whereas at Newcastle they teach 'people skills' more. You really have to take the QAA thing with a pinch, no, a trough of salt - some universities are able to grade themselves!!!!!!! (no prizes for guessing which.....)

Reply 23

Unregistered

lse for medicine ???

haha

Aberdeen should be on there.

Anyone have some negative/positive points to tell me about Aberdeen apart from "its too dark/wet/rainy/climateoutofcontrol?" :smile:

Reply 24

Unregistered

The league table are rendered useless by the fact that the they include arbitrary factors like average A level entry .... which has zero relation to course content.

Really the people who made these tables need shooting for not seeing this elementary problem - who r these goons, huh?

Theses tables do become useful once the arbit. info is discarded...and if you look at them ... teaching quality and facilities ...then Newcastle, Southampton and Liverpool top the charts, as they have done for the past decade or so, more or less.

Oxford have got a decent course, v.v. academic and nearly enuff clinical.... but the biggest draw is surely the chance to live in those gorgeous halls for all five years of your course... :smile:

Also whatever you say its got too many goons by far, man. I wouldnt wanna study there simply becuase of this fact.

Reply 25

Unregistered

MattyK

ahem...

you get around dont you? :smile:

Giz

Reply 26

Unregistered

9 Us at A-level?

Well, I suppose you deserve all Us if you think you are clever enough to do 9.

Reply 27

According to the Times it is Oxford.

Who did this poll? Why would LSE offer medicine?

Reply 28

Unregistered

Best Uni for medicine? Depends wahat you want really. Places like Oxford and Cambridge are ideal if you want to do a really science-y degree, with a view to doing research after your degree, or something similar. On the other hand, somewhere like Peninsula med. school is focused much more on developing the skills to make a good doctor.

Peninsula got a very bad report by the GMC/BMJ. Loads of doctors have told me not to apply there.

Reply 29

Unregistered

Peninsula got a very bad report by the GMC/BMJ. Loads of doctors have told me not to apply there.

IMO

What a complete waste of time. the notion that this forum can be used to illicit any meaningful analysis of the "best university for medicine" is a total fallacy.

research .... research you say. the only thing you can ascertain is the vanity of existing medical students beating the drum of their own respective institutions. is it too much to assume that this forum could generate anything but self indulgent, my med school is the best because i go there; or X med school is the best because of its research ranking alone twaddle.

if you are going to assess the best schools, you need to assess the profession at large. Med schools feed the demands of the profession and reflect many of its attitudes and ideals. if we are talking about, lets say the hippocratic oath, then these shared ideals are fundamental. if however, we look at the entrenched, dogmatic, self preservationist attitude of the medical profession then you will find that universities that are able to develop new methods are the only ones to solve old problems.

if we look at documents like tommorows doctors, or any number of papers on progressive medical education; these fundamentally reflect the deficiencies of the profession. they are a cry for help, that universities may develop curriculum which develops great doctors. this is far removed from ideas which relate strictly to treating illness, but take this much further to develop attitudes and understanding that foster clinical excellence.

The paradigm shift of ideals where the patient represents far more than a series of symptoms, and his mental/physical wellbeing become the core focus of the profession is where we are headed - thank god. the best medical schools are those that will embrace progressive change.

so what is this progressive change. surely it represents the desire to improve and actually implement new ideas. this may sound an obvious force in every profession - but the fact is that the medical profession, underpinned by existing medical education, is highly resistant to change. medical education needs to be knocked off of its high horse!

Thats where PBL comes in. PBL is not the panacea, but demands the most radical of reassessments. through this process of shifting the balance of education towards the student (and clinical excellence combined with human understanding) the med students will take the best of both worlds. PBL demands that med schools and the profession do not rest on their laurels, or accept deficiencies, but move forward - shaping students clinical problem solving from the outset. PBL demands, smaller study groups, more time interactively learning, less time in lectures. Its tougher on the student as it demands, that the bulk theoretical knowledge must be accrued outside teaching time - not in lectures. it saves the daylight hours for interacting with problems, hands on practical clinical time from the outset; actually learning to think like a good doctor.

The best med schools have at their core, individuals who are not afraid to push at the boundaries. research brings in cash and prestige. it provides excellence in vast arrays of specialties, as well as individuals primarily attuned to their research not medical education. FACT - The focus of med schools is research, it provides the lifeblood capital without which they cannot survive. However, i honestly feel that the balance shifts far too heavily on research, to the detriment on medical education. PBL has to be the answer. Yes it does require less teachers, but i am convinced it makes better doctors. I am sure that you have experienced many a arrogant, dry, emotionally barren medical professional - they are a function of the orthodoxy in medical education.

as you can see i can go on a bit, but i just want to round off on the penisula med school comment. peninsula may have flaws, ie:- no dissections, weighted heavily towards clinical medicine (the only significant long term flaws imho), but it is the truest representation of the PBL model in the UK it represents the best chance for setting a new standard in CLINICAL excellence. it has the components - great lecturers, a receptive and apparently visionary faculty, cutting edge technology and a genuinely warm, open and exciting atmosphere. That's got to be a pretty damned important part of the equation. They dont foster BS, just the MBBS, and hopefully one day good doctors too.

PS I'm not a Peninsula affiliated - yet :-)

sy

Reply 30

Unregistered

and just to add, the supposed GMC/BMJ Peninsula Medical School review doesn't exist.

You should note that the GMC/QAA partnership responsible for assessing med schools has never assessed Peninsula Med School.

In fact i believe that the above partnership is now defunct - has been since before the school opened its doors 12months ago.

lots of doctors told you not to bother applying. that didn't seem to stop double the national med school average of applicants for Peninsula places this year (2003-2004). based on ratio of applicants to places. We'll just have to wait and see if their faith in Peninsula is justified, won't we.

btw the doctors who told you not to bother applying to Peninsula - how could you hear them through the comforts of the padded cell, toughened glass and diazepam. :-)

kindest regards

sy

Reply 31

DanMushMan

Some would say St George's. League tables change all the time and different sources can simply change the assessed criteria and that will alter anything. There's no point in choosing a med school by how well it does on an internet message board. Visit each one you're thinking of, look at the course and the facilities and make your own choice.