Pbl

to be fair, comparing myself to my friends on otehr lecture based courses, people do keep an eye on me and what i'm doing a lot more than they do them. one of my friends (now dropped out) didn't go to lecture for ages and no-one noticed, whereas if i didn't show up to pbl every week or obviously hadn't done the work my tutor'd have a private word with me. i find it to be almost more structured, and tbh the point is not to hide how little work you've done, it's to actually learn...

Hello,
I was wondering if any of you medical students are studying at a PBL medical school?
How are you finding PBL?
Is it hard to get to grasp with?
Do you feel like you are gaps in your knowledge?

The opinion of students in more traditional courses would be nice
Pros and cons would be nice.

Thanks.

I recently did an entire SSC on PBL - its 4500 words of *******s, just let me know if you want to read it.

In answer to your questions:
Yes i'm at a PBL med school
I don't like PBL
Its not that hard to grasp but its very different.
And yes I do feel there are gaps in my knowledge.

In my opinion, PBL is a waste of time and money unless loads of effort is put into it by the student, the tutor and the institution you're studying at. The concept of PBL is pretty sound, but in reality it doesn't work that great most of the time. Its success is dependent on too many things. There are good points about PBL such as the fact that you can learn what you want when you want really so its very flexible.
Knowledge wise - you're basic science knowledge will probably be below that of a more traditional student, but clincial knowledge should (in theory) be about the same.
Also, new PBL curricula also have a heavy emphasis on communcation skills (which probably explains the advantage in terms of communcation skills rather than giving the credit to PBL itself)
You must be very self-motivated for a PBL course and sometimes you'll be unsure about what exactly you need to know.

Saying that, i'm glad im not on a traditional only course.

I'd love to read it

Yeah, do you feel that this lack of basic scientific knowledge will be restrictive when you're actually on wards, or is it just the "nice to know but slightly pointless when you're actually on the job" knowledge you lack?

When it comes to exams, is it is nightmare to know what you have and don't have to know?

I've never heard a PBL medic slagging off PBL...

oh yeah, everything else is compulsory here, ie pbl, clin skills, com skills, CCT, community placement. it's jus plenary (and HARC) that isn't. but you'd be a bozo not to go to harc.

Reading Daveo's post has me slighlty worried. Im going into a PBL course this year and the lack of scientific knowledge part really worries me. is there any way of ensuring you can get enough scientific knowledge in?

Yeah, do you feel that this lack of basic scientific knowledge will be restrictive when you're actually on wards, or is it just the "nice to know but slightly pointless when you're actually on the job" knowledge you lack?

I'd say yes, but I suspect that consultants at the Radcliffe complain about Oxford students not knowing enough just as much as the ones at The London do.

What I think the advantage of PBL on the wards is that when you're asked about something that you don't immediately recognise (and students on both types of course will encounter this) you should have the skills to think through it logically.

yeah. work hard. the problem i find is that if you're clever and have some common sense, you don't need to know all THAT much to pass (well first year). so if you decide you're gonna learn for learning's sake obviously you can learn a lot more than necessary.

Why would you be any better at that coming from a PBL course than a traditional course? Surely if you had a better grounding of the science, you'd find it easier to deduce from first principles?

edit: not an attack on PBL, before i get met with fire and brimstone.

I'm at a traditional medical school, and I wouldn't say I had my hand held at all. The amount of time I spend studying outside of timetabled classes and practicals, and preparing for them (4 hours of dissection a week means about the same at home at least if you want to get anything out of it) is far greater than the amount of time I spend in them. You have to do a hell of a lot of self-directed learning and if you haven't done the work for a supervision or practical then it *will* show, and I'd definitely say it's a lot harder to blag your way through/hide in a supervision, where there are usually only 2 of you, than in a PBL session. You're not going to be spoon fed at any medical school and I think it's time people stopped having that misconception.