Pros and cons of your med school?
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?St. George's:
PROS:
+ It's a close-knit community and you get to know everyone pretty well. About 200 medics in a year.
+ Anatomy teaching here is actually very good (I'm on the new course so older George's medics on here may say otherwise!). We spend a whole day a week on anatomy, a lecture and dissection in the morning and surface anatomy + clinical skills relating to the lecture dissection in the afternoon. They even make handbooks for anatomy and clinical skills for us which is nice.
+ The medical school is attached to the hospital. No real reason why this is a pro, but from time to time it can remind you why you're there if you see a doctor frantically wheeling a patient on a bed whilst coming out of the lecture theatre!
+ The 'right' balance of case-based learning, tutorials and lectures in the preclinical years. PBL in the clinical years (just like any other school methinks).
+ There is plenty of basic science to keep you going.
+ The course is very good and is designed to follow a spiral so that topics are repeated over and over, adding more depth each time, which makes remembering stuff a little bit easier.
+ Some patient contact in the first two years, but only for two weeks per semester.
+ We're not GKT.
CONS:
- George's has a reputation for being "over-assessive" and this is certainly true. Up until very recently (this year) they were using negative marking to penalise incorrect answers in exams, and even though they've stopped this practice, the exams are still pretty hard to pass. You must pass three themes to progress -- Basic and Clinical Sciences (BCS), Personal and Professional Development (PPD) and Patient & Doctor (PD), and they have to be passed independently to progress. To cut a long story short, a strong performance in the sciences (BCS) for example, will not compensate a fail in the clinical skills OSCE (PD). This would be OK, except I will probably fail my formatives not because I can't tell my T-lymph from my B-lymph, but because I can't discuss the different psychological lay health beliefs.
- If mixing with people from other courses is your thing, there's a wide range from biomed, nursing and physio to choose from
- PPD (the wishy washy stuff) is mundane. Communication skills sucks too.
- Not many choices for the intercalated BSc. Don't know how this will change when (or if) we merge with The Royal Holloway. -
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?At BSMS with regards to how much different years count to your quartiling first year is half, second year is one and third and fourth year are double.(Original post by Philosoraptor)
Yeah obviously you'd step your game up if you got to resits.
Ok - but how much does preclinical count compared to clinical - hopefully a much smaller amount, right?
So in terms of ratio 1st
3rd:4th = 1
4:4
Not sure if that makes sense
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?The pre-freshers are infiltrating the med student forum. It may just be one three letter word now, but soon... 'OMG but u neeeed maths and my cousin's dog's tennis coach's nephew got in by threatening to shoot the admissions tutor, how cum u dont no dat?!!!!11one'(Original post by Philosoraptor)
What?
Be afraid, be very afraid.... -
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?That is PRECISELY how I got in to medical school, I would recommend it to everyone.....(Original post by Becca-Sarah)
my cousin's dog's tennis coach's nephew got in by threatening to shoot the admissions tutor, how cum u dont no dat?!!!!11one'
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?Peninsula
Pros:
- Amazing clinical exposure from the word go. Moving through a different specialty every week in clinical years keeps you on your toes and means you're doing something different every day. Case based learning rather than through lectures means better retention of information.
- Sense of community, being across 3 main campuses means you get to explore all of Devon and Cornwall and have access to all of its facilities and opportunities for exposure throughout the 5 years.
-Plymouth and Exeter are both excellent places to gain the university experience, especially in your first 2 years (Personally I would recommend Plymouth as you live with non-medics and it's a very young city, awesome night-life etc).
- Exams aren't hugely stressful and I dont spend my life revising, as we only have 4 exams a year set at F1 standard that you can't revise for.
- Excellent analysis of your progress through the course and really good support if ever you were to fall behind.
- The opinions of the students are valued and our feedback is constantly being acted upon to improve the course
- loads of self-directed learning time means i can spend most of my effort learning the things i know i need to and not wasting time going over things i already know. Students come from a huge range of backgrounds and we all have a different knowledge base when we enter so this is essential for ensuring range of knowledge.
- We are treated as equals by the other healthcare professionals we are taught by and given so many opportunities because of this(I can now basically do a hip replacement on my own- under supervision obv).
Cons:
- Anatomy teaching isn't strong in pre-clinical years so you feel less prepared for surgery. However, I've found that clinicans more than make up for this in clinical years as they know you need anatomy teaching and so are able to teach you anatomy on living patients (much more fun than cadavers imo).
- If you live in Exeter for first year then you only live with other medics.
- A lot of emphasis on professional practive and reflection on your own development which is pretty important but i do think they go a little OTT.
The long and short of it tho: I'm loving it
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Re: Pros and cons of your med school?Thanks for that, very interesting!(Original post by Smile88egc)
Peninsula
Pros:
- Amazing clinical exposure from the word go. Moving through a different specialty every week in clinical years keeps you on your toes and means you're doing something different every day. Case based learning rather than through lectures means better retention of information.
- Sense of community, being across 3 main campuses means you get to explore all of Devon and Cornwall and have access to all of its facilities and opportunities for exposure throughout the 5 years.
-Plymouth and Exeter are both excellent places to gain the university experience, especially in your first 2 years (Personally I would recommend Plymouth as you live with non-medics and it's a very young city, awesome night-life etc).
- Exams aren't hugely stressful and I dont spend my life revising, as we only have 4 exams a year set at F1 standard that you can't revise for.
- Excellent analysis of your progress through the course and really good support if ever you were to fall behind.
- The opinions of the students are valued and our feedback is constantly being acted upon to improve the course
- loads of self-directed learning time means i can spend most of my effort learning the things i know i need to and not wasting time going over things i already know. Students come from a huge range of backgrounds and we all have a different knowledge base when we enter so this is essential for ensuring range of knowledge.
- We are treated as equals by the other healthcare professionals we are taught by and given so many opportunities because of this(I can now basically do a hip replacement on my own- under supervision obv).
Cons:
- Anatomy teaching isn't strong in pre-clinical years so you feel less prepared for surgery. However, I've found that clinicans more than make up for this in clinical years as they know you need anatomy teaching and so are able to teach you anatomy on living patients (much more fun than cadavers imo).
- If you live in Exeter for first year then you only live with other medics.
- A lot of emphasis on professional practive and reflection on your own development which is pretty important but i do think they go a little OTT.
The long and short of it tho: I'm loving it
Although a little unsure about the hip replacement comment.
