For anyone taking the medicine league tables seriously...
Scroll to see replies
People are putting too much emphasis on correlations. Correlation is not definitive evidence that teaching at one medical school is inherently better than teaching at another - as alluded to earlier, a lot of it comes down to the individual students themselves.
I used to be worried about prestige of medical school when I first started my application but have soon realised it means nothing. A lot of it was Down to my own naivety and listening to the children at school droning on about how prestigious their uni is.
If you work hard enough you will succeed no matter what med school you went to, as evidenced by the fact top doctors and consultants come from a range of medical schools and across the world. It's not the be all and end all if you didn't go to Oxbridge - your medical career isn't just going to monumentally flop if you didn't attend a top ranking university.
That's just my perspective anyway as a medical school applicant. I'm sure someone will inevitably pick holes in what I've written and say I'm too young or inexperienced to comment on the matter but oh well you have your opinions I have mine
✌️
I used to be worried about prestige of medical school when I first started my application but have soon realised it means nothing. A lot of it was Down to my own naivety and listening to the children at school droning on about how prestigious their uni is.
If you work hard enough you will succeed no matter what med school you went to, as evidenced by the fact top doctors and consultants come from a range of medical schools and across the world. It's not the be all and end all if you didn't go to Oxbridge - your medical career isn't just going to monumentally flop if you didn't attend a top ranking university.
That's just my perspective anyway as a medical school applicant. I'm sure someone will inevitably pick holes in what I've written and say I'm too young or inexperienced to comment on the matter but oh well you have your opinions I have mine
✌️
Original post by Gaiaphage
This is interesting, what kind of costs are there for postgrad exams? I know school-age exams are in the region of £35 each but that's not enough to actually stop people taking them, especially high-earners such as doctors
They're generally in the region of £300-600, and you have to successfully pass 3-4 of them. If you're taking 3-4 attempts at each that'll add up.
Original post by nexttime
They're generally in the region of £300-600, and you have to successfully pass 3-4 of them. If you're taking 3-4 attempts at each that'll add up.
Wow, that's crazy. I see what you mean now!
Original post by Gaiaphage
Wow, that's crazy. I see what you mean now!
Precisely (and that price excludes revision courses you may want to go on too). Just work hard, and learn things properly from the get go wherever you go.
Original post by Gaiaphage
This is interesting, what kind of costs are there for postgrad exams? I know school-age exams are in the region of £35 each but that's not enough to actually stop people taking them, especially high-earners such as doctors
My FRCA will cost me £2000 in exam fees alone, having passed the first three parts first time - taking the final one in 7 weeks, it will be another £550 if I fail! Courses and books on top of that probably double it.
It is tax deductible and you can get study budget for some of it, but I have massively overshot my study budget for each of the last three years.
Original post by nexttime
So for context, this was comments made by the head of the med school when giving one of his last lectures.
Being a good FY1 involves a lot of skills that aren't having a good knowledge of medicine. I'd even go as far as to say you could be a reasonable FY1 with very little knowledge of medicine at all if you were quick at signing forms, organised, efficient etc. You have to ask for help a lot but that's fine, a good thing even. All med schools are thinking ahead by teaching, y'know, medicine.
He was just saying that he is not going to compromise this teaching by having extensive shadowing years, by making you sign in and out of wards even when its not useful, by having logbooks to ensure you've done 25 cannulas or whatever. You might find it harder at first, but you will learn that stuff on the job. For now, just learn medicine. He would argue that's born out by postgrad exam pass rates.
Though there was of course a two week shadowing program and an F1 survival course right at the end as having nothing to go on would be pretty mean
F1 doesn't really teach you anything except how to work longer hours that you're contracted to. Its certainly not teaching you the comprehensive knowledge you need to be the reg - you do that in your own time when studying for exams.
Being a good FY1 involves a lot of skills that aren't having a good knowledge of medicine. I'd even go as far as to say you could be a reasonable FY1 with very little knowledge of medicine at all if you were quick at signing forms, organised, efficient etc. You have to ask for help a lot but that's fine, a good thing even. All med schools are thinking ahead by teaching, y'know, medicine.
He was just saying that he is not going to compromise this teaching by having extensive shadowing years, by making you sign in and out of wards even when its not useful, by having logbooks to ensure you've done 25 cannulas or whatever. You might find it harder at first, but you will learn that stuff on the job. For now, just learn medicine. He would argue that's born out by postgrad exam pass rates.
Though there was of course a two week shadowing program and an F1 survival course right at the end as having nothing to go on would be pretty mean
F1 doesn't really teach you anything except how to work longer hours that you're contracted to. Its certainly not teaching you the comprehensive knowledge you need to be the reg - you do that in your own time when studying for exams.
I see where you're coming from but I still disagree. Post-grad exams are several years after F1/F2 - if you let a doctor who isn't confident with providing care for patients on the ward, you're putting patients in harm's way. Far better to train them less in the 'learn Medicine' department and rely on the registrars for help there and their own learning for post-grad exams than it is to let them loose without a thorough grounding in care provision.
Original post by nexttime
I think the main reason you'd kill someone as an FY1 is failing to ask for help. I don't think being less experienced at practical procedures, or less well rehearsed at doing discharge summaries is going to be a big patient safety issue.
Dear God, you don't think practical competence is necessary? When you're covering nights, there're barely any nurses and no doctors in sight, your patients who need intubating/cannulating/whateveralating and you'd just say, 'Sorry, I know the theory, but I can't quite get it in (lol)'?
You can call up your reg to confirm medical details, you can't call them up for an immediate, emergency intubation.
Original post by Parent_help
Adamski, do yourself a favour and try to look up the steps required to be a consultant - and what a consultant actually does.
Also, being a great F1 does not mean its likely you will be great consultant. There is so much more to it than passing exams.
Yes, we all know that it depends on the student and their drive, but the circle jerk response here that "it doesn't matter" is not as correct as people want to believe.
There is a report somewhere (BMJ I think), that details how your choice of med school affects how easy your future path options could be.
Very generically (YMMV), the upshot was something like...
- The "lecture based" unis were better for preparing students when they eventually faced consultant exams.
- The 'PBL' courses were better for preparing students for the immediate next step (F1).
Also, being a great F1 does not mean its likely you will be great consultant. There is so much more to it than passing exams.
Yes, we all know that it depends on the student and their drive, but the circle jerk response here that "it doesn't matter" is not as correct as people want to believe.
There is a report somewhere (BMJ I think), that details how your choice of med school affects how easy your future path options could be.
Very generically (YMMV), the upshot was something like...
- The "lecture based" unis were better for preparing students when they eventually faced consultant exams.
- The 'PBL' courses were better for preparing students for the immediate next step (F1).
I'm not quite sure why I'm dignifying the board troll with a response but I can afford a minute or two, I guess.
First and foremost, the PBL unis are slowly moving to a defined, integrated course as opposed to solely problem-based teaching. I know Liverpool has distanced itself from the term 'PBL' by talking about delivering a 'Spiral curriculum', but if your medical school doesn't have a spiral-style curriculum, you're pretty stuffed anyway. Manchester teaches with 7 lectures per week/2 hours anatomy/2 hours practical 'physpharm' approach, so contact in one of the most PBL-centric unis is hardly limited. It's not as if these schools don't educate people how to learn/do these consultant exams. If the proposed nationalised exam for final years actually goes ahead, I'm sure things will be made much clearer, too.
Thankfully, I'm quite well versed on the steps involved on becoming a consultant, and I'm not quite sure what you're alluding to because my comment doesn't demonstrate a lack of understanding. I definitely don't think that your medical school doesn't matter and I never said that either.
My point was that being a poor F1 at the prospective gain of being an excellent consultant isn't a good thing. Everybody wants to be House and nobody wants to do exactly what he doesn't do (if that makes sense). You'd be putting people's lives on the line by not teaching your 'top' graduates how to actually deal with being anything other than a fully-fledged reg/consultant. I've heard that it's not uncommon for people to fail MRCP exams several times - you can do it as many times as you like. The only restriction, I think, is that after 7 times (or some stupidly high number), you need to reflect/get a colleague to sign it off. I also think that it's FAR better to prepare people how to deal with being a doctor initially than it is to teach them things which should, rightly, be expected of them by their MRCPs/whatever post-grad exams. Why teach somebody something in 1st year that they aren't going to use again for 10-15 years as a consultant delivering specialised care when you could spend those hours teaching them other stuff? I could well be wrong, and I won't know if I'm wrong until I get to those exams, but I guess I'll just have to see.
My solution is to repeal work-time restrictions and bring back longer (not as long, but longer) hours. American 'interns' see 80 hours a week of work, sometimes higher. How do you expect us to know/learn as much as they do with ~30 fewer hours under our belt EVERY week? That would solve lots of issues, including inexperience at junior levels for those from more traditional, non-EBM universities.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by AdamskiUK
I see where you're coming from but I still disagree. Post-grad exams are several years after F1/F2 - if you let a doctor who isn't confident with providing care for patients on the ward, you're putting patients in harm's way. Far better to train them less in the 'learn Medicine' department and rely on the registrars for help there and their own learning for post-grad exams than it is to let them loose without a thorough grounding in care provision.
Dear God, you don't think practical competence is necessary? When you're covering nights, there're barely any nurses and no doctors in sight, your patients who need intubating/cannulating/whateveralating and you'd just say, 'Sorry, I know the theory, but I can't quite get it in (lol)'?
You can call up your reg to confirm medical details, you can't call them up for an immediate, emergency intubation.
Dear God, you don't think practical competence is necessary? When you're covering nights, there're barely any nurses and no doctors in sight, your patients who need intubating/cannulating/whateveralating and you'd just say, 'Sorry, I know the theory, but I can't quite get it in (lol)'?
You can call up your reg to confirm medical details, you can't call them up for an immediate, emergency intubation.
Erm yes you can and should. If I found an F1 attempting intubation without any senior backup, I would have serious concerns about their insight into their (lack of) competency.
I think you are taking your anecdote (which in 5 years working in London I never heard) to extremes.
Original post by AdamskiUK
I see where you're coming from but I still disagree. Post-grad exams are several years after F1/F2 - if you let a doctor who isn't confident...
Confidence is different to competence.
...with providing care for patients on the ward, you're putting patients in harm's way. Far better to train them less in the 'learn Medicine' department and rely on the registrars for help there and their own learning for post-grad exams than it is to let them loose without a thorough grounding in care provision.
What do you mean by 'care provision'? As i state above, the main things you need are to be able to prioritise and sign forms quickly. Until the NHS gets its act together and standardises administration (good god i hope they manage that when they computerise everything) that's hard to teach.
You might do some medicine when on call but you always have someone to phone and ask.
Dear God, you don't think practical competence is necessary? When you're covering nights, there're barely any nurses and no doctors in sight, your patients who need intubating/cannulating/whateveralating and you'd just say, 'Sorry, I know the theory, but I can't quite get it in (lol)'?
Even experienced people fail at cannulas all the time? You phone someone else and apologise.They're all done by the nurses in my hospital anyway.
You can call up your reg to confirm medical details, you can't call them up for an immediate, emergency intubation.
I wouldn't call my reg no - i'd put out a crash call and get anaesthetics reg, the ITU reg, and a whole host of other people, as well as my own registrar*. Because no matter how busy things are there is always someone to turn to.
*There is actually good evidence from the army that inexperienced people attempting intubation worsens outcomes - its better to just put in an LMA and get them to someone who is equipped to deal with it. Even if there was no help coming i would not be attempting it.
Original post by Gaiaphage
Wow, that's crazy. I see what you mean now!
The GP osce (CSA) costs £1660 to sit.....
Original post by Eva.Gregoria
I beg to differ, PBL is the teaching method of the future 
Who wants to be stuck learning theory day in day out, give me clinical examples any day!
Who wants to be stuck learning theory day in day out, give me clinical examples any day!
Well you still need a solid theory in order to apply it to the scenario
. I'm not 100% sure how PBL works but the only PBL I had so far involved CBT therapy and was absolutely horrible.Original post by AdamskiUK
Unless you want to know what a cannula is, how it's used, and when to use it (ie. when you want to know how to save a life). Then it goes:
PBL
Non-PBL
Oxbridge
PBL
Non-PBL
Oxbridge
Well, we learn it in 3rd year only. Not really sure how you gonna apply this knowledge after the 1st year.
But anyway, it doesn't matter if you learn about it now or in 5th year as long as you do at same point. At least IMO
Original post by solarplexus
Thats your opinion.
Maybe you should also keep it to yourself?
Most people I know got into Irish medical schools only because they couldn't get into UK ones.
I was originally going to apply to TCD and RCSI as mere backups, but I thought its overseas at the end of the day so I didn't bother. Lucky enough I didn't have to.
Maybe you should also keep it to yourself?
Most people I know got into Irish medical schools only because they couldn't get into UK ones.
I was originally going to apply to TCD and RCSI as mere backups, but I thought its overseas at the end of the day so I didn't bother. Lucky enough I didn't have to.
Well just because you didn't get into UK med schools and apply somewhere else doesn't make the other medical unis worse. If you lived in UK your whole life it's kind of obvious you want to study in your country.
Or, as our UCAS ambassador at school told us, UK med schools are extremely hard to get in but also hard to get thrown out (as opposed to other European med schools). Another reason why so many internationals apply.
Original post by Nottie
Well you still need a solid theory in order to apply it to the scenario . I'm not 100% sure how PBL works but the only PBL I had so far involved CBT therapy and was absolutely horrible.
. I'm not 100% sure how PBL works but the only PBL I had so far involved CBT therapy and was absolutely horrible.Oh we get lots of theory teaching, but a lot less time is spent in lectures learning theory and more time spent doing PBL and on placements. We probably only get about 10 lectures a week. It's a nice balance as I know I'd get bored really easily with the traditional method.
imo i like the lecture method. I feel when learning for the first time you really do need to be taught by an expert and have that same lecture to watch on-line over and over.
When you have the knowledge sealed, then i favour PBL in helping you to apply it.
IMO, if you work hard in PBL you will remember far more than in lectures
Maybe it's laziness? I don't know.
PBL in my view, mirrors what it'll be like far more than lectures. PBL for the long term, lectures if you just want to solidify concepts easier and with a lot less effort.
When you have the knowledge sealed, then i favour PBL in helping you to apply it.
IMO, if you work hard in PBL you will remember far more than in lectures
Maybe it's laziness? I don't know.
PBL in my view, mirrors what it'll be like far more than lectures. PBL for the long term, lectures if you just want to solidify concepts easier and with a lot less effort.
I really enjoyed PBL, I love learning via interacting with people and being taught personally rather than just being talked at, like it is in lectures. Lectures in third year were pretty useless for us anyways, so I never really went to them.
Having done the lecture method and having a few PBL experiences I think a bit of both would be nice. I think the lectures really help you get the basics, the core information down so you don't have gaps in your knowlege. I think the PBL is a more fun and interesting way to learn but it should only be used as a supplement or else I do think the amount of learning will be really variable between groups and depending on the motivation of the individual.
what even are pbl? medicine should be learned from textbooks.
Original post by AdamskiUK
I'm not quite sure what you're alluding to because my comment doesn't demonstrate a lack of understanding. I definitely don't think that your medical school doesn't matter and I never said that either.
I'm not quite sure what you're alluding to because my comment doesn't demonstrate a lack of understanding. I definitely don't think that your medical school doesn't matter and I never said that either.
I gave a link (did you look at it?) and others have posted their thoughts. Nothing more than that.
Original post by AdamskiUK
....Why teach somebody something in 1st year that they aren't going to use again for 10-15 years as a consultant delivering specialised care when you could spend those hours teaching them other stuff? I could well be wrong, and I won't know if I'm wrong until I get to those exams, but I guess I'll just have to see.
....Why teach somebody something in 1st year that they aren't going to use again for 10-15 years as a consultant delivering specialised care when you could spend those hours teaching them other stuff? I could well be wrong, and I won't know if I'm wrong until I get to those exams, but I guess I'll just have to see.
If you read the article I linked to, it refers to the scenario you are alluding to
Get a grip lad - was trying to help you
Original post by Parent_help
I gave a link (did you look at it?) and others have posted their thoughts. Nothing more than that.
If you read the article I linked to, it refers to the scenario you are alluding to
Get a grip lad - was trying to help you
If you read the article I linked to, it refers to the scenario you are alluding to
Get a grip lad - was trying to help you
I read the article in my own Student BMJ and I picked it up again to read it through again when you mentioned it. At the end of the day, it seems that I don't know what I'm going on about, but I still know more than you. It also seems as if there's no general consensus from experts, so it's not too worrying for me that I don't know what I'm going on about.
Going through this post is interesting - the qualified medics are stressing how there's very little difference between graduates overall, yet the current medical students are the ones picking apart their own uni/other unis. Is that competitive harharing? I don't know. I can tell you now that I will be a better doctor than x% of people trained at Oxbridge or London, just as there will be x% of those trad. doctors better than me. I'm not too fussed about anyone else but it's interesting to see that some people think that different skills are imparted upon students by different unis.
Collectively, that can only be a good thing (if true, which I suspect that it is), because it means that when you're F1ing with solely Oxbridge grads and you've had a more EBM-based, PBL-structured education, you're bringing something new and dynamic to a team focused on typical physpharm outcomes.
Original post by Eva.Gregoria
Oh we get lots of theory teaching, but a lot less time is spent in lectures learning theory and more time spent doing PBL and on placements. We probably only get about 10 lectures a week. It's a nice balance as I know I'd get bored really easily with the traditional method.
oh okay, that way. For some reason I thought PBL is just getting a scenario and then researching hell a lot about everything that can be related
Lectures arent that bad tbh. Althouhg you loose the concentration quite quickly.
Quick Reply
Related discussions
- Which is the best universities in UK
- Guardian/Daily Mail Uni/Times Rankings 2024
- Medicine- Newcastle or Glasgow
- Leicester med school vs HYMS?
- KCL Mathematics
- ucas rank or guardian rank
- Is UCL the best after Oxbridge?
- St Andrews vs Oxbridge
- Why is Lancaster University expensive than University of Nottingham
- Does anyone know how reliable the Guardian's 'Average UCAS Score' section is?
- Retake Year 13
- University Options for Math/Statistics and Philosophy Joint Degree
- Economics BSc
- How do I balance league tables vs course content when choosing a uni?
- geography application
- Chemistry
- University recommendation
- Masters in Sport and Exercise Nutrition
- UCL reputation in uk
- Uni of Southampton Vs Uni of Surrey
Latest
Last reply 2 minutes ago
JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over hate crime lawLast reply 3 minutes ago
Student finance for Pre-Settlement Status applicant for BSc NursingLast reply 3 minutes ago
Is there a way to get old school qualificationsLast reply 4 minutes ago
AQA GCSE Physics Paper 1 (Higher Tier triple) 8463/1H - 22nd May 2024 [Exam Chat]Last reply 6 minutes ago
Amazon Project management apprenticeship 2024Last reply 6 minutes ago
Official University of Bristol Applicant Thread for 2024Last reply 8 minutes ago
What super curricular activities should I be doing??Last reply 8 minutes ago
Official University of Sheffield Offer Holders Thread for 2024 entryLast reply 10 minutes ago
CPS Pupillage/Legal Trainee Scheme 2024 (2025 Start)Last reply 10 minutes ago
Official UCL Offer Holders Thread for 2024 entryLast reply 12 minutes ago
Official Cambridge Postgraduate Applicants 2024 ThreadLast reply 13 minutes ago
emmanuella's study discussions #2: taking breaksLast reply 16 minutes ago
Official Dental Hygiene and Therapy (Oral Health Science) 2024 Entry ThreadDentistry
2862
Last reply 16 minutes ago
How many people in a flat in uni accomodation is too many?Last reply 16 minutes ago
Official University of St Andrews Applicant Thread for 2024Trending
Last reply 5 days ago
OFFICIAL A101 Liverpool University Graduate Entry Medicine Thread 2024 EntryMedicine
77
Trending
Last reply 5 days ago
OFFICIAL A101 Liverpool University Graduate Entry Medicine Thread 2024 EntryMedicine
77
