Medical rotation

Has anyone here done any medical rotation at all at The University of Cambridge? Or knows someone who did? Pleaase reply asap

I did my degree there, if that's what you're after?

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That's excellent
I'm a medical student in my final year and have recently got an acceptance letter to do a 6 week elective rotation at Cambridge at the department of orthopaedics. Frankly speaking I want to make the most of this experience and was wondering if you can help and give me some advice about how can I do that.
I mean how do rotations normally go there and what are the expected students' roles?
Any advice would be so very extremly appteciated

My experience in orthopaedics was not brilliant, to be honest - but it's not a specialty I'm keen on so I did the minimum required to get the module signed off. You should try to attend a mixture of theatres, clinics and ward work, to experience all aspects of the job. Hopefully you'll be assigned a consultant to follow, so you should go to his/her clinics and theatre lists, and see his/her patients on the wards with their team. The elective co-ordinator should be able to give you more information. Your role will be essentially observing, though you might be able to do procedures like taking blood etc if you are trained to do so. I don't know if you would be allowed to scrub into operations, but it can't hurt to ask.

My experience in orthopaedics was not brilliant, to be honest - but it's not a specialty I'm keen on so I did the minimum required to get the module signed off. You should try to attend a mixture of theatres, clinics and ward work, to experience all aspects of the job. Hopefully you'll be assigned a consultant to follow, so you should go to his/her clinics and theatre lists, and see his/her patients on the wards with their team. The elective co-ordinator should be able to give you more information. Your role will be essentially observing, though you might be able to do procedures like taking blood etc if you are trained to do so. I don't know if you would be allowed to scrub into operations, but it can't hurt to ask.

Apologies for hijacking but was your bad experience with orthopaedics due to the team at Cambridge or because of your dislike of the specialty?

Hello plrodham, are you doing an orthopaedics elective at Cambridge too?

Apologies for hijacking but was your bad experience with orthopaedics due to the team at Cambridge or because of your dislike of the specialty?

Thank you Helenia
Are there any particular resources that students at Cambridge usually study for this rotation from? Or any recommended textbooks/ a syllabus?
Also, I was assigned to Mr Vikas Khanduja, any idea what are the doctor's preferences with regard to the material I am supposed to be familiar with during my rotation?

I think it was a badly-run rotation for students, we were expected to get excessive numbers of clinics/theatre lists "signed off" but there was obviously a limit on how many students they were willing to have in each clinic/theatre, so it was not actually physically possible to get enough sessions done in the time we were given. And the surgeons knew we were only there to get our books signed, and so mostly we got ignored, especially in theatre. The exception to this was the morning trauma meeting where they seemed to take pleasure in tearing the students to shreds.

That was several years ago now though, so a)things might have changed, and b)if you're actually interested in orthopaedics then your experience could be very different. They do a lot of very interesting work, both elective and trauma, I just wasn't the right person to appreciate it!


Never met him, I'm afraid! I just used the Oxford Handbook of Clinical Specialties, I'm sure there are more in-depth books if you're really keen on orthopaedics, but I'm really not the right person to ask. Cambridge is a really nice city and the hospital is excellent (though hideously ugly from the outside!) so I hope you have a great time!

I think it was a badly-run rotation for students, we were expected to get excessive numbers of clinics/theatre lists "signed off" but there was obviously a limit on how many students they were willing to have in each clinic/theatre, so it was not actually physically possible to get enough sessions done in the time we were given. And the surgeons knew we were only there to get our books signed, and so mostly we got ignored, especially in theatre. The exception to this was the morning trauma meeting where they seemed to take pleasure in tearing the students to shreds.

That was several years ago now though, so a)things might have changed, and b)if you're actually interested in orthopaedics then your experience could be very different. They do a lot of very interesting work, both elective and trauma, I just wasn't the right person to appreciate it!