Pros and cons of your med school?
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Please don't hesitate to correct me if this is all nonsense. Nor should it put you off Birmingham. Just keep your expectations realistic...
I think what you say is very fair and reasoned. You're right that every med school has its problems, and you're right in highlighting that certain frustrations unfortunately are far from unique to Birmingham. Vive l'administration...
Fourth year can be a particularly lonely and isolated year if you fall foul of the rotation lottery and up with a tough combination. I think this is part of the reason I found it so tough - the cumulative effect of general medical school stuff, but then a bad 4th year experience, and ended up taking time out at the end of it. One of the best things I did. I have my 'own' bunch of 4th years at the moment, and hopefully my own experience of 4th year is making me particularly aware of making sure that their experience and welcome into the team is as good as possible.
I would reiterate that the support system is good if you get into difficulties, but agree that before this, it is once again a lottery. One thing that helped me in my later clinical years, was to almost find my own support in terms of a couple of consultants whose interests I shared, and whose specialties I was considering in the future. They allowed me to keep in touch now and then, both from a clinical interest POV and also pastoral, and this was invaluable in terms of finding people who did have a vested interest and knew me as an individual.
Birmingham clinical placements do need a lot of travelling. There are pros and cons to this though - and one of the pros for me was that I never had to stay away, which happens often at other med schools. The cons were the cost 9especially as someone who didn't drive) and the time factor. But I think if I had been away in 4th year as well as all the other difficulties which you've summarised very fairly, I think it might have been even tougher than it actually was.
Pros:
brilliant facilities and equipment - the med school opened in 2005 so everything is new from then
superb staff - all friendly and helpful
small student numbers (130 per year) - i know everyone in my year and wouldn't have it any other way
beautiful country campus, gorgeous in summer
brilliant course - PBL but very guided. The case is complemented by lectures, physiology sessions, histology, clinical stuff, and anatomy so you don't feel abandoned
full dissection
Cons:
they really push psychosocial teaching, too much
campus smells of manure in hot weather from the cows
the nightlife isn't amazing. But it is what you make of it...
Leicester
+ Full-body dissection takes place which is an excellent way of learning Anatomy
+ Living costs are relatively cheap
+ Campus is beautiful!
+ Very friendly atmosphere
+ University has high rankings for medicine
+ Excellent for student support
+ Accommodation choices are wonderful
+ Three hospitals nearby
+ Teaching generally receives good ratings
- Clinical experience would probably not be as diverse as the one you would receive in London
- Learning GREATLY involves group work so if that's not your thing, you might be a bit ****ed.
- The pass mark for exams is higher than most med schools
- They haven't gone through your PS at interviews, so you kind of have to sell yourself which can be QUITE awkward
- They look at your LOWEST score of a section in UKCAT rather than your average so think twice about applying here if your lowest score is 500 or something in a section.
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Life Cycle (interesting)
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Nutrition, Metabolism and Endocrinology (difficult)
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Cardiovascular, Respiratory and Renal Medicine (interesting)
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Clinical Sciences and Investigative Medicine (interesting except pharma)
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Medicine in the Community (you'll stop turning up to these after 3 weeks)
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Personal and Professional Development (ditto)
Second year:
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Thoughts, Senses and Movement (most peoples favourite module)
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Life Cycle
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Clinical Sciences and Investigative Medicine
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Medicine in the Community
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Personal and Professional Development
It's mostly lecture based, with a lot of supporting seminars where you work in a group of about 15-20 going over stuff you've covered in lectures. These can range from simple talks about various systems to ethical debates, from sociological and philosophical discussions to just having a chat.
You also have Clinical Skills frequently where you learn CPR, Chest exams (Resp and Cardio), Abdo exams, Neuro exams of the limbs, Cranial nerve exams, history taking, Otoscopy, Fundoscopy, Venesection and other skills you'll need when you start in hospital.
There are also frequent dissection sessions where you learn the anatomy that's already been covered in lectures. It's seriously worth learning it when you're looking at a cadaver, diagrams are useless for learning anatomy in my experience, you get given cadaver photos to label in the exams, so learn from them.
On top of lectures, seminars, clin skills and dissections, you have a couple of GP and Hospital visits where you practice history taking and generally get an idea of patient interaction. You'll also be visiting a pregnant mother in your first year, and a chronically ill person in your second year when you do your Family and Patient studies respectively. You'll probably see them quite a few times and it's a nice change of scenery getting to sit in someones living room chatting to them.
There are 4 pieces of coursework in first year, and 2 in the second year. The Family Study's the tricky one in first year because it takes a lot of time and investment to write up, and both the second year assignments are the same.
One of them is an student selected component (SSC), where you can write a review on a topic of your choosing basically. For example mine this year was on "The use of Arsenic Trioxide in the treatment of Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia". It takes a lot of time to read the literature but if you pick a topic that interests you then it's a really enjoyable piece of work to do.
There are 3 exams in the first year. You sit an exam in November, one in January and one in June, all multiple choice (but not easy MCQs, trust me). You also have an OSCE, which is an exam testing your Clinical Skills, but it takes real incompetence to fail that.
Pros
There are some brilliant lecturers!! Just to name a few who you will see regularly: Prof Fardon (genetics was not my fave, but he made it amazing/interesting/easy to understand and I’m actually interested in it now), Prof Keen (the queen of pharmacology and speaks to students, rather than at them), Dr Spruce- listen in his lectures, he may not tell jokes, but when confronted with a neuroscience book (*whimpers* with a terrified look)....you’ll thank yourself that you listened in his lectures! He underlines the main concepts and his lecture handouts are simplified and easy to understand....he should write a book. Dr Tcslepsis is an absolute legend who puts his lectures up as podcasts and his lectures are memorable! The dean gave us a single lecture and it was brilliant, but I love hormones so i may be bias! You’ll find out that some lecturers are very important/clever people, but seem to be out of touch with teaching to students and to be both an important/clever person and a good lecturer is skill. These lecturers are not just a credit to the med school, they are a credit to their profession. The course is very lecture heavy, so lecturer quality is very important!
We do very well in MRCP (top 5) - these postgraduate exams will actually get you your jobs!
Endless reflection (using Gibbs Reflective Cycle) prepares you for your life as a doctor.
If you’re dead set on being GP, Bham is the place for you.
Medsoc!! Join it and enjoy the societies within it. The big size means that's there is every society you could ever dream of: canoeing with the Wilderness society, treating children's teddybears to make kids less scared of drs at TeddyBear hospital, rugby, hockey, cricket, pingpong, squash, lacrosse, badminton, tennis etc etc - we get a lot of money so the societies are very good. If you’re not convinced you want a social life - older years will offer your notes/handy tips for exams. We won the best medsoc this year.
MedBall....pricey, but by far, the best night of our first year.
There are some amazing hospitals in the area.
If your fail exams badly, the med school will help. But badly mind! If you fail a couple, they leave you to your own devices. If you get 50s, 60s etc and want to improve, they don’t care; you passed….this is more of a con than a pro.
Mitigation: if you’re having problems, the med school are incredibly supportive (says friends). However, you need proper evidence (medical certificates etc) which avoids people who are dishonest. A good and fair system.
CBM: the patients are the best part of CBM….they remind me why I chose medicine. I’m in a “deprived” area and the patients are straight-talking and friendly. Eases you into the whole patient communication aspect. My GP was nice, hence I have a good relationship with my GP….be warned though the stereotype “all GPs are nice people” is not true, neither is “surgeons aren’t nice people” for that matter!!
SSA poster – posters/presentations etc are important for your CVs, and whilst you might envy your friend at UCL doing their SSC in stress management (talking about their feelings + lying on a yoga mat), it is probably more useful in the long run.
CC: free printing.
Med school is open 24 hours a day, non-medics try and work at med school because it's such a good place to hit the books - but then security staff escort them off the premises.
Barnes Library: the staff are helpful – though be polite and courteous!
Mental health support is there, just seek it! Don't be afraid. The number of cups of tea/people eating my biscuits that could have been avoided if our friends had actually consulted counsellors etc rather than us. It can be stressful, so develop coping strategies....join a medsoc society in sport (sport is good for your mind)
Cons
The med school is big....there were 381 people in my year at the start - it can leave you feeling more like a student barcode, than a student. And if they do know you, I don’t think it’s for good things...
Very heavy workload may cause (unnecessary) stress.
Feedback is could be better. There’s too many people for meaningful feedback. You get feedback for your CBM essay, your LEM essay, your SSA poster and generalised feedback (not individual) on your summer written papers, but not any feedback on your multiple-choice questions.
We don't feel as if student feedback is acted upon….. you fill out student feedback forms (you have to), you have a meeting (you have to go), they justify why the course is the way it is; nothing happens.
Assessments.....I know there are post-graduate exams and revalidation etc etc, but there are LOTS of exams in Year 1 for 9 modules - a total 24 exams - we were examined 3 times for each biological science module, 2 times for each medicine in society module and 2 times for Integrated problems. You have to write essays for CBM and LEM and reference them Vancouver/Harvard style or you may face an F2P hearing for plagerism. It is upto you to learn how to reference properly. Getting in to med school is HARD, so if you have a choice between similar-ish med schools, choose a med school with a high retention rate. Having said that, a lot of people leave due to depression or switch to other courses. It is unnecessarily stressful for Year 1 - esp. when you have moved 5 hours away from your home!!
Anatomy. Since, the slating of anatomy at Bham, the med school have taken to making sure we know our anatomy. You are expected to know head, neck, trunk, lower limb, upper limb, back…yeh, basically everything. You need to know the nerves, muscles and major blood vessels…..all in first year. This may cause you to become stressed, disillusioned and resentful. There is also a compulsory anatomy viva at the end of 2nd year that they have introduced for my year…so you can’t cram learn your anatomy for first year. If you do not pass this, you cannot go into 3rd year. We were allowed to go to the prosectorium 3 times this year. Most of the "teaching" is done by small group sessions with a anatomy demonstrator (pot luck who you get), where you go through sheets with questions. Alternatively, your demonstrator may be a rebel and completely disregard the sheet and teach you anatomy. We found the anatomy very overwhelming, so learn it!! But don't have a mental breakdown over it.
Lack of guidance on the format of exams.
SSA: “student selected activity”. Was that where they forced us to do a research based project?
Socials can be very drink-orientated....*bad times*
Wherever you choose, medicine is absolutely brilliant….there is no course we would rather do!! It is so interesting what we learn in lectures and CBM spurs you on as you realise the relevance of knowing the difference between osteoarthritis/rheumatoid arthritis etc. Chose a course that suits you, e.g. if you get stressed about exams, bham may exacerbate this - you have to last 5 years at at least! Enjoy first year! At bham, you have to really want medicine/being a doctor... lot of people have found out medicine isn’t for them in year 1 - it is a waste of your time and your money. Ultimately, you must actually, genuinely, whole heartedly care about patients....atleast that’s what we think after a year of bham!
Pros:
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London - lots to do, good London med school banter
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PBL - Despite what I was made to believe prior to applying here, BL is not solely a PBL based course and you are not left to do things on your own. There is a very good mix of teaching here with 4 hours of PBL compared to 10/12 hours of lectures on the four days a week we are actually on campus. One day a week is spent at a GP Surgery (or Hospital in second year). On top of these methods of teaching, we also have practicals, clinical skill sessions, anatomy sessions and microanatomy (histology) sessions. There is obviously some independent/self directed learning here (as is the case on most other medical courses) just because its clearly not possible to teach absolutely everything you need to know about medicine in the actual course itself and you do have to rely on yourself doing your own outside reading. Also, the advantage of PBL rooms in teh Garrod Building means you can book them out to revise (individually or in a group) should you need to - you esentially have an entire classroom to yourself which means that if you are the sort of person that likes scribbling away on a whiteboard to test yourself just before an exam (like I am), this would be ideal for you. Its also open 24/7 practically everyday of the year too, so long as you have your ID card on you.
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East London - relatively cheap London housing after first year in Bow, Mile End, Shoreditch, Poplar, Wappping, Stratford etc.
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Very strong sense of community here
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Lectures are sometimes recorded which means you can listen to them again afterwards if you missed it for whatever reason
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Very quick turnover with exam results - end of year results come out a week after your last paper, and it is double marked too - very efficient. ICA results take about a week and a half too to get back to you. SSCs take a bit longer as they have to wait to get everyones results back before they can be published on Blackboard.
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Whitechapel Market - it sells anything and everything and its uber cheap stuff too which can come in handy when the student loan money begins to run out
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They've listened to us and increased study leave for end of year exams to two weeks in pre-clinical years (as opposed to the single week we had before)
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Nice, large enough, friendly year group - not too big that you feel ignored and not too small that you are bored of your year group by the end of the first week
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Still get smaller group practical/pbl sessions which are very useful if you want to slow things down to your pace. I'm certainly less embarrassed to ask a question in my PBl group as opposed to in a massive lecuture theatre
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ICAs all year round (can be annoying because there are 3 sets to do each year before your end of year exams), but if you manage to stay on top of them, end of year exam revision is a whole lot easier.
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No negative marking in exams (apart from in some SSCs etc.)
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No more SAQ exams after 2nd year
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People in your year look out for you - the amount of past papers and notes and details of revision sessions being emailed to me by randoms is sometimes very astonishing! In such a competitive field like medicine, its nice to have such camaraderie at BL.
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Very well set out course - PBLs/lectures/practicals all link very very well with each other and make understanding so much more easier
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Spiral curriculum which means suff is revisited over the 5 years which makes things a lot more easier to remember. You essentially cover each 'module' three times before graduating - one in first year, once again in second year and then once when you hit the wards. Constant repition means its more likely to be remembered.
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Union is AMAZING - everyone sorta knows everyone and is uber friendly
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We remain autonomous from Queen Mary
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2012 Olympics in the East End - new Westfield being built in Stratford in addition to other stuff to regenerate the area a bit
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We rule at RAG, big time! And we do it in serious style!
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HEMS - you can get on to the PreHospital Course here which involves going out on shifts with Emergency Doctors/Paramedics! Well exciting!
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Really diverse student body which is really nice
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Brick Lane is like 5 minutes away from the Whitechapel Campus
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OSCEs from year one which means by 5th year, you should be a pro at examinations
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You can choose to dissect (as an SSC) or learn through prosections
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World renowned hospitals for placements
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Good mix of hospitals - you get the busier London Hospitals like the London Chest, St Barts and The Royal London hospitals as well as the smaller, quieter DGHs as far out as Chelmsford and Southend. You essentially get a good mix of patients, teaching and experiences as a medical student here.
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Modern lecture theatres and facilities
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The main lectureres/module leads are legends! We've had Prof. Kumar (President of the RSM/authour of Kumar and Clarke) lecture us a few times in first year
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GP Placements every other week in first two years
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Good transport links (to said GP placements and other stuff in London)
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Masses of clubs and societies to join here
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Charterhouse Square. Summerdaze. EPIC. That is all.
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BL students know how to have a good time
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We remain autonomous from Queen Mary (yep, so good I had to mention it twice 
)
Cons
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East London- erm, yeah, its hardly Chelsea or Kensington now is it.
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The unions a bit meh on the inside (though there is now a £800k refurbishment taking place from September 2011). There've been some pretty top union nights though (dental beer race was defo my highlight in first year), but it sorta went quiet around April time because of exams etc. which was to be expected.
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Quite difficult to integrate with non-medics/dentists unless you live on the Mile End campus
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Can be a liiiiitle bit cliquey to begin with - people group off by ethnicities quite a bit especially at the begnning of the year, but thats probably the same everywhere else tbh - you generally have more in common with them. After the first term or so, there's a whole lot of intergration!
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Sometimes the clinical bits they throw into the pre-clinical years can be a bit OTT and rather than trying to understand whats going on (like you would when you start placements in the clinical years), you begin to just memorise random scales like the ASIA scale etc. because you know for a fact they'll throw it into one of the exams.
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Good idea to have GP Placements in pre-clinical years but there's a lot of variation with the teaching/assessments. Oh and some of them are a trek to get to in the first place! I was in Essex this year - had to leave my house at 7.15 to get in for 9.
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You can get the odd lecturer who mumbles to themselves rather than talks to the students, but again, thats not specific to BL.
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Most days start at 9am (especially if you have morning PBL sessions too)
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Portfolios in the pre-clinical years seem pointless (probably more relevant for the older years, but doing them now is a bit meh)
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Meeting with your personal tutor is just long. Can be useful if you have a problem, but quite pointless otherwise. Shouldn't really be compulsory IMO.
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Assessments can be timed quite badly - weeks of nothing and then one week were you have to hand in PBL write ups, revise for ICAs at the end of the week and do an SSC presentation. Kinda annoying tbh.
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Not many choices for iBScs (even though you have the choice to do it after 2nd, 3rd or 4th year which means most people that actually want to do one will get to do one eventually). Intercalated BScs done after second year HAVE to be done internally, whereas from 3rd year onwards, you can apply externally if they are willing to accept you).
Depsite my (many) cons, I still love it here at BL. You're hardly going to find the perfect course anywhere really, but I'm pretty chuffed I'm at BL! Absolutely love it here!
just wanted to say thanks, am now seriously considering BL! sounds really good!
1. Serious Clinical emphasis - Clinical medicine is emphasised in every aspect of the course. It is very clear that they aim to graduate ultra competent doctors. Anatomy and Physiology and its clinical application is stongly emphasised (not glossed over) in every case unit, in lectures, the clinical scenario for PBL and in the LSRC sessions.
2. Clinical Competence - They take clinical skills seriously and we are taught and expected to be able to take a history and competently perform a combined cardiovascular, respiratory and GI examination by the end of first year (on real people). From the very first week of the course the clinical skills teaching begins, and we are assessed on our ability to perform these skills from the very first term.
3. Community Placements - Community Placements are once per case unit in the first year (2hrs) and Become day placements every other case unit in the second year. (Then full on clinical pathways from 3rd year)
4. PBL - Problem based learning is a very structured way to facilitate learning, it allows you to gain knowledge based around clinical scenarios, so you are always able to relate the science (anatomy and physiology) directly back to its clinical application. It teaches you how to learn the way we would learn as doctors and teaches you about team dynamics and gives you the skills to adapt swiftly into any team and make it functional.
5. You are not a number - At Peninsula you are treated as an individual and as a partner in the course. They genuinely do care about us and listen to us, they are always actively seeking our feedback and actually make changes. The course really is designed around us, and not the other way around. The course is innovative and progressive, they have thought the course out very clearly and the aim is very clear from the beginning - to produce ultra competent doctors and who are slick and highly confident around patients.
6. Clinical Anatomy - Being able to understand medical imaging and clinical examination is emphasised, from the very first year we are taught how to interpret medical imaging and diagnostic tests and understand the clinical anatomy to get a feel for what you would be looking for with examinations.
7. Family Feel - Peninsula has a community family feel, you are supported every step of the way, even in your SDL. We all get on with each other, every one knows each other in each year, and they know almost everyone from the year directly above them and lots of people from every year. The whole student population socialise well with each other.
Cons
1. PBL - The effectiveness of PBL really does depend on how well your group works together and how well the facilitator works with the group. This is not an issue most of the time, and even if it is your group and facilitator changes termly so it does not become an issue.
2. Lectures - Lectures are sometimes boring and not clinically integrated properly. (This isnt really a con, but we notice when lectures are not as good, because we are used to lectures which provide the information within their clinical context.)
There are more cons than this but I cant even remember them.
They cant be important. 
No you cant Three unstats = Unsatisfactory Aggregate, which when added to a Sat or Even an Excellent only give you a borderline aggregate.
(Yes I know you can appeal and get through on that, but not by default)
(Yes I know you can appeal and get through on that, but not by default)
Trust me fella I know of people who have done this. Though that was between years 1-3 when you could fall back on end of year exams/appeals. You can go through on a borderline aggregate provided that you redeem yourself the amk at the beginning of the new academic year. A friend of mine did that between second and third.
1. Serious Clinical emphasis - Clinical medicine is emphasised in every aspect of the course. It is very clear that they aim to graduate ultra competent doctors. Anatomy and Physiology and its clinical application is stongly emphasised (not glossed over) in every case unit, in lectures, the clinical scenario for PBL and in the LSRC sessions.
2. Clinical Competence - They take clinical skills seriously and we are taught and expected to be able to take a history and competently perform a combined cardiovascular, respiratory and GI examination by the end of first year (on real people). From the very first week of the course the clinical skills teaching begins, and we are assessed on our ability to perform these skills from the very first term.
3. Community Placements - Community Placements are once per case unit in the first year (2hrs) and Become day placements every other case unit in the second year. (Then full on clinical pathways from 3rd year)
4. PBL - Problem based learning is a very structured way to facilitate learning, it allows you to gain knowledge based around clinical scenarios, so you are always able to relate the science (anatomy and physiology) directly back to its clinical application. It teaches you how to learn the way we would learn as doctors and teaches you about team dynamics and gives you the skills to adapt swiftly into any team and make it functional.
5. You are not a number - At Peninsula you are treated as an individual and as a partner in the course. They genuinely do care about us and listen to us, they are always actively seeking our feedback and actually make changes. The course really is designed around us, and not the other way around. The course is innovative and progressive, they have thought the course out very clearly and the aim is very clear from the beginning - to produce ultra competent doctors and who are slick and highly confident around patients.
6. Clinical Anatomy - Being able to understand medical imaging and clinical examination is emphasised, from the very first year we are taught how to interpret medical imaging and diagnostic tests and understand the clinical anatomy to get a feel for what you would be looking for with examinations.
7. Family Feel - Peninsula has a community family feel, you are supported every step of the way, even in your SDL. We all get on with each other, every one knows each other in each year, and they know almost everyone from the year directly above them and lots of people from every year. The whole student population socialise well with each other.
Cons
1. PBL - The effectiveness of PBL really does depend on how well your group works together and how well the facilitator works with the group. This is not an issue most of the time, and even if it is your group and facilitator changes termly so it does not become an issue.
2. Lectures - Lectures are sometimes boring and not clinically integrated properly. (This isnt really a con, but we notice when lectures are not as good, because we are used to lectures which provide the information within their clinical context.)
There are more cons than this but I cant even remember them.
They cant be important. Having gone through it all I would say PBL whilst doing it was absolutely crap, on reflection, (and yes I said reflection in true PCMD style) it does prepare you well for independent learning in the clinical years and beyond. Some lectures are good in third and fourth year you will have something called cpc's and ssl's which are amazing and are actually useful and go over really useful things for the amk and obviously clinical practice. They are ten times better than the crappie ones in first and second year
Then there are all the usual problems - incompetent administrators, useless libraries, unfair and illogical rules about just about anything, painfully slow IT systems etc etc... but these things I suppose are the same everywhere to some extent.
My experience of course might not reflect those of others'. I feel I am fairly mainstream in my views, but perhaps I'm completely wrong. And I'm sure all medical schools have similar or other problems. There are many good times - but I find these are mostly down not to med school but to the very rare doctors you might meet who are actually passionate about teaching and want to share their enthusiasm and teach. Most of the hospitals are quite new and friendly (one or two exceptions!) and some of the commutes are terrible - but again that will be the same elsewhere and perhaps even worse.
Personally, I feel that they haven't given me what I wanted in terms of encouraging those interested in academia. I got involved in a lot of projects, but it was all done to me. Med school gave little relevant teaching, no advice, no framework, no support. Of course in any med school the greatest effort has to be on the student and I am not asking to be spoon fed - but sometimes it would be nice if they at least let us know of the opportunities that exist. Perhaps other med schools do this better, perhaps not.
I know they are working on changing the clinical curriculum and I hope they manage to improve it. I'm not too optimisic though. No doubt they will cling on to the student selected activities that everyone knows are mostly a waste of time (the patient information leaftlet, the "teaching" project, the baby posters etc etc). The fact that the med school is largely run either by GPs or medical educationaliss (who lack a medical degree) means it will always have a certain spin to it - the sort of spin that sends us on endless GP placements where you spend all day brainstorming and filling in question sheets, but not actually seeing patients.
Well, who cares. If you make it to the end and learn some medicine along the way and graduate - well that is what you came for and what gives you so many opportunities in the future. I just hope I do make it to that happy day...
Please don't hesitate to correct me if this is all nonsense. Nor should it put you off Birmingham. Just keep your expectations realistic...
This is not all nonsense, all my friends and I feel the same way about birmingham. What you've written is so true, I just wish i didn't believe the prospectus and the paid tour guides. Your post will give lot of applicants a lot of useful info and make the choice that is right with them. Good on you.
Pros
-Full body dissection: easily the best way to learn anatomy. Taught by semi-retired surgeons weekly for a year. Arguably a little too in depth compared to other medical school but really good if you're considering surgery as a career
-Early but not too early clinical contact: the odd visits you have to GPs and Hospitals remind you why you're here in the preclinical years and you learn.... some stuff. Not a lot. Definitely FUN!
-The FREE degree: for 4 weeks less summer holiday we get an extra degree and research experience. Okay it's worth 1 point less than the equivalent degree as of MTAS 2012, but it saves you a year of intercalating!
-Pastoral Support: Personal tutor, tight knit medic families (kids year below, parent year above)... pretty cushty for handing around notes and textbooks etc.
-Clinical Skills Teaching opportunities: once you get to 4th year you're encouraged to help lower years a LOT in their practicals and it's always useful for yourself
-Social life: MedSoc does great events, there is literally something for everyone. Good work ethic definitely taking "Work hard, play hard(er)" too literally. Biggest and most successful RAG in the country who basically own the social life and will become a huge part of most peoples social life in the first few years. Societies for anything and everything. Night life is awesome and relatively cheap (AND OCEAN IS THE BEST CLUB ON THE PLANET)
-Halls: catered halls conveniently placed and the student area of Nottingham where people move to afterwards is next to the QMC. Campus is BEAUTIFUL
-Lecture based: No need to think for 10 weeks at a time in preclinicals if you are so inclined, can cram for first 2 years exams in a couple of weeks using podcasts of lectures, lecture notes and the wealth of material online to meet the highly structured objectives we get given.
-Hopsitals: all pretty modern, some are a bit smaller and older but generally all are good to be placed in
-Can resit finals in the same year: if you fail finals you can resit about 6 weeks later and still take up your F1 job if you pass... my understanding is this is pretty unique but I may be wrong
-Exam feedback: Traffic lights for each objective depending on how well you met them during the exam and links to lectures next to each objective if you wanted to brush up on those pesky reds
Cons
-Hospitals: Can be far away, and a pain to get to without a car but usually people will be driving so not a huge problem. Accomodation is handy at Mansfield and Lincoln. The commute to Derby and waiting for lifts can extend a 2 hour day into a 9 hour ordeal easily.
-Communication Skills: good that we get taught about it but the way it's done is a bit of a joke. Personally really didn't get much from it. Roleplays etc. like they have at other unis would be much more useful
-Lack of holidays: we get slightly less than other medical schools due to the BMedSci. Not much less, but some less.
-Only one proper SSM: we have optional modules to pick from (eg. in 3rd year if you're doing a project in Biomedical Sciences then you have a choice of 2 modules from 10) which are good but only one true SSM in the course which is during 4th year.
While I don't feel I've been here long enough to write up a review of Newcastle yet I will have to second that recap (and Searle's tales of Sophie's vagina) are amazing things.
Coincidentally one of my flatmates is a Sophie.
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