TSR Med Students' Society Part V

Its been mentioned a couple of times- last student/faculty meeting about academics they mentioned that it is high on their list of priorities- only ESAs though so hopefully I'll avoid it. Its a ridiculous idea!

Oh and you know the infamous neuro lecturer... well in the latest idiocy they emailed today saying if we don't fill in module feedback we will receive a formal write up for not fulfilling our professional duties. WTF?!

So PPE, IPE and Finals will be spared from that stupid idea?

Ah, I wrote an entire A4 page of feedback for Head and Neck after we got told the same. Nothing ever changes though!

The MSK vertebral column included the highlight of "The vertebral column, also known as the vertebral column" and thats about as much as I learned that lecture.

Going to try and self teach a bit of head and neck over the summer, just because two straight weeks of it is going to be hellish otherwise!

I think PPE onwards should be spared. TBH I think all of our year would refuse to do it on Ipads, no one thinks its a good idea! They're just trying to use the ipad as much as possible, but its not designed for writing exams etc. I suppose it could work for SBA but Ipads are too temperamental and who is to say it wouldn't just crash half way through?

Yeah, I reckon you can self teach quite abit of it. If you need a run through of what to learn, I'll give you a list of what I did. I did pretty well in HnN without learning crazy amounts of detail.

I would refuse to do it also, particularly because I've used workbooks throughout as opposed to iPads. Imagine the stress of not being able to write an answer properly.

We've used Ipads throughout but it is so buggy. And its not easy to write long pieces of texts, either by using a pen or a keyboard. A couple of my formatives I've hand written because it is such a pain on the Ipad.

Personally, although Ipads are good for lecture slides, I'd much rather have printed work books!

Yeah a list of HnN topics would be good. Currently snowed under with all the joys of ESA2. I hate MSK because we don't really know what we need should know. And half of the clinical stuff they just quickly mention in the DR but thats it.

MSK isn't too bad in the exam, it's usually basic stuff. They often give some form of an x-ray which you have to label, identify bones/ligaments/neurovascular structures. In my ESA2, I had a question of femoral fractures and then a dislocated elbow, which were both quite straight forward. The reason they chill on the MSK in ESA2, is because of the OSCE. My ESA2, had a lot more MOD, I think we had 3 cancer questions (lung, breast and skin)

Real patients, with real pathology where you're required to diagnose and think about investigating and managing them from 3rd year? That's very tough to do - I don't think I'd have been able to do that comfortably as a 3rd year; I'd barely been let loose on a ward. :s It's the reason everyone starts flocking to wards in final year to find patients with signs. The struggle was real. I guess it depends on the structure of your course though and what you've been taught by each stage. Just out of curiosity, does your final year vary to 3rd year then?

The MSK vertebral column included the highlight of "The vertebral column, also known as the vertebral column"

Third year was similar (real patients with signs), but less emphasis on investigation and management. We would have been on the wards for a year and half at this point so it's a little less alien.

Ha yeah, during my finals I saw more signs than I've seen during my entire final year. Most of which I'd only ever read about.

Very strange doing an examination and actually finding something (other than your usual crackles or pitting oedema). You have to suppress the inner thought of "oh wow, that's really cool, I've never seen that before!".



Lmao, I hope on the second time you pronounced it slightly differently.

The vertebral column, also known as the verTEEbral column.

In my OSCE this week I said that the patient's tongue was fasciculating...the examiner looked at me like wtf so I quickly said 'or the patient is just shaking' and they nodded. Mortified

We had head and neck in 2.5 weeks and it was taught horrendously..expect to be looking up an anatomy atlas an awful lot! It's fine eventually though!

Really strange OSCE style - all of ours are skill sets, with 12 stations and 8 from this year;
Thyroid/Sensory/Motor/Cranial Nerve/Spine/Shoulder/Knee/Hip/Lymph Node/Oral/Abdominal/Ear/Eye

Plus Histories
(Gynae/GI/Thyroid/Headache/Collapse)

Very first aid-y.

I don't mind msk in a written exam so much, its more the OSCE that I am worried about

I think we're expecting quite a bit of repro to come up in the written papers. I still need to revise all of ESA1 as well! Its going to be a looonnnnggg 4 weeks!

The anatomy in the OSCE is really straight forward. Some lecturers can be difficult in the stations, but just stand by what you say.

I remember the grad rotation in my cohort had the easiest OSCE in terms of the anatomy assessed (they were the Wednesday slot) so hopefully yours will be similar.

You may infer that, I couldn't possibly comment. Just trying to think happy thoughts and not dwell for the next week.

Ah I got a Wellcome Trust scholarship for the summer!

So my boyfriend's mum is in hospital from a car accident. He's so emotionally drained and it's killing him.
He wants me to be there for him but the thing is our relationship is sort of not working out and I was planning on leaving him next weekend when we meet. (LDR)

I don't know what to do now :/ I don't want to be horrible and leave him out of the blue but I also don't want to carry the relationship further. Should I wait till after June when exams are over? I really don't want a distraction from my work and I planned to see him once before exams begun:/

Oh, that's awful. I'm so sorry to hear. I've always thought these sounded like incredibly sticky situations: you don't want to lead him on like you still want to be together, but at the same time you don't want to hang him out to dry at a stressful time. If it was me, I'd stick the relationship out for a little while more to help him get to terms with it and then break up. Whether that's the right thing to do or not I don't know!Posted from TSR Mobile