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Pros and cons of your med school?

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Reply 160
Bute:

Pros:

Brand new building - top class facilities, new skills labs, pharm labs, DR etc etc
Dissection if like me you're into that - otherwise legendary anatomy department (lecturers have been here for decades and are really top class), lots of anatomy teaching, only 4 people in my disection group!.
The lecturers know you personally.
A lot of science
Very good integration with rest of university, whilst a good medic feel at the same time.
You can do an MBChB with BSc(Hons) in 5 years - the only place where you can do this.

Cons:

The school is too far up the GMC's arse.. too much reflection, portfolioing etc etc
Not a lot of clinical medicine, only three afternoons in the whole of first year (although that's what clinical years are for, right?)
Exams are a bit weird.
Comm skills workshops - totally pointless really - very badly thought out.
8ams...
We seem to cover stuff very slowly and possibly in unncesarily large amounts of detail (though get a BSc(Hons) thrown in for our efforts.
Pharmacology is a history lesson, not at all clinically focused, indeed some of it is boredering in dangerous, very outdated course.
(edited 13 years ago)
Pros:
* Having two consultants: two students ratio at clinicals is sweet!
* 4 year course = quicker doctor
* Varied cohort...all sorts of backgrounds (different degrees/jobs/etc)

Cons:
*Really disorganised
*Too much psychosocial work (warwick love pink modules)
*Exam format is bizarre...completely bizarre
Reply 162
magichearts
Does anyone have any pro/cons for University of Sheffield??? It'll be great to hear from you. :smile: Thanks!


Now that you're at Sheff, maybe you could write one? :o: :p:
v1oXx-
Now that you're at Sheff, maybe you could write one? :o: :p:


Don't know how accurate my pros and cons will be since I'm just in first year but here we go:

Pros:
- Great lecturers (two amazing ones as well)

- Cadaver dissection once a week

- Integrated learning

- Early clinical placements/patient contact

- Amazing medical society (throws amazing parties and gives great support)

- Formative assessments every week (keeps you on top of your work)

- Great lecture hall (usually at the medical school - comfy seats + large table space)

- Not a lot of anatomy teaching

- Usually 9-11am days

- Great environment/place to study (not too many distractions but just enough to keep you busy)

- Great student nights

Cons:
- Too much emphasis on public health

- Travelling quite far for clinical practicals (30-35 minute bus ride and the bus only comes every half hour - for example: practical at 3:00 pm, you have to catch the 2:00 pm bus...but you arrive 25-30 minutes early and you are only there for a 45-50 minute practical - but they are planning to change this next year)

- Not a lot of anatomy teaching (I don't know how this will affect me in the future hence it is in both pros and cons)

- Formative assessments (great to keep you on top of your work but annoying b/c you HAVE to do them every week)

- 9am lectures. Enough said.

- Not so great admin team (they tend to get VERY disorganized and cause a lot of inconvenience)

- Some people can get placed in pretty far peripheral hospitals - such as Doncaster (this year they didn't provide accommodation so people had to travel every day)

If you've got any specific questions send me a pm and will be happy to answer em.
My pros and cons for Peninsula Medical School:

Pros

• Very progressive, open-minded take on medical education

• Our exams are designed in a way that let's you see how your clinical knowledge is improving every few months (absolutely brilliant if you ask me)

• Large emphasis on getting your clinical skills good enough to be useful on the wards before you start your clinical years

• Very broad and interesting selection of SSUs throughout the course

• Lots of clinical exposure from day 1

• Heavy emphasis on clinical science and physiology, ideal for people wanting to be a physician (ie. me) or GP

• Being a new school with decent funding, most of the facilities and equipment are very good and up-to-date

• You are awarded academically for your organisation and write up of your elective

• All the lectures in the past however many years can be streamed on the VLE

Cons

If you want to be a surgeon -> • Anatomy teaching, in the first two years at least, is, in my opinion, as lightweight and weak as it could possibly be. If you don't teach yourself anatomy, you don't learn any, and it's almost never assessed. Most doctors I talk to about this say that it's a good thing because it's all a waste of time unless you want to be a surgeon, and you have to learn it all over again then anyway, most surgeons say that it's a disgrace and mercilessly rip into us for our inability to name all the contents of the femoral triangle.

There are hundreds of surgeons from Peninsula, but many I've spoken to say they had to do a lot of self teaching as our course is really quite light on anatomy.

• Campus switching - you will be moved between Exeter, Plymouth and Truro every 2 years of the course. On the one hand this means you get to experience a few different cities and aren't stuck in the same place for 5 years, on the other hand it can be a major pain and due to the location of the peninsula it often means being shift another few hours away on the train from home/friends/girlfriends or boyfriends.

• Exam results - maybe this is a problem at other medical schools, I'm not sure, but our exam results are frequently late. Apparently this only really goes for lowly first and second years but it's still been a pain.

• This goes for every school afaik, but I find that clinical skills is taught in a way that distances it from the medicine you're learning. You're taught what to do, but not often why or what a specific sign you're looking for represents and how it is caused. You can ask, but most of the time I have asked the nurses they just don't know the answer. This can mean that clinical competencies in the first two years are more like training to be a waiter in a posh restaurant or a dancer - it's choreography and acting, that's about it.

Also, the nurses have some obsession with doing everything in a specific order and will mark you down if you don't.

Overall for me, Peninsula is a great school. It's one of the new ones, and so had to fight for a reputation, but now it's finding itself both praised nationally by doctors and shooting up the league tables. Combined with the fact that it's got a great exam system nicked straight from those masters of efficiency, the Germans, I'd say Peninsula is pretty much the ideal medical school for me and given the pick of any in the country, I'd pick PMS every time.

That said, the south west isn't particularly my cup of tea, but if you're into smaller cities, the countryside and the sea then you'll be in your element.

Prospective surgeons might have an easier time on a more traditional course, obviously there's nothing stopping a PMS student from becoming a surgeon but I'd say it definitely would require a lot of SDL. If you want to be a GP or physician, you'll find from day one you're being taught clinical skills and being put into clinical environments, which feels great.
I'll do a clinicy one, someone remind me in August when exams are over :p:
Well I'm in the second batch of students to go through the 'new' curriculum they've implemented at BL. They've kept most of the old stuff, reshuffled a few modules and pretty much added in a lot more anatomy teaching, introduced a separate anatomy exam (spotter exam) in addition to the usual written papers, added in more pharmacology in the pre-clinical years and shortened the term so we have uber long summer breaks. That does mean, we do have pretty jam packed weeks with all the stuff they've timetabled (with only two weeks each for Easter and Christmas holidays)...

Pros:

London - lots to do, good London med school banter

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.

East London - relatively cheap London housing after first year in Bow, Mile End, Shoreditch, Poplar, Wappping, Stratford etc.

Very strong sense of community here

Lectures are sometimes recorded which means you can listen to them again afterwards if you missed it for whatever reason

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.

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

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)

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

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

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.

No negative marking in exams (apart from in some SSCs etc.)

No more SAQ exams after 2nd year

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.

Very well set out course - PBLs/lectures/practicals all link very very well with each other and make understanding so much more easier

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.

Union is AMAZING - everyone sorta knows everyone and is uber friendly

We remain autonomous from Queen Mary

2012 Olympics in the East End - new Westfield being built in Stratford in addition to other stuff to regenerate the area a bit

We rule at RAG, big time! And we do it in serious style!

HEMS - you can get on to the PreHospital Course here which involves going out on shifts with Emergency Doctors/Paramedics! Well exciting!

Really diverse student body which is really nice

Brick Lane is like 5 minutes away from the Whitechapel Campus

OSCEs from year one which means by 5th year, you should be a pro at examinations

You can choose to dissect (as an SSC) or learn through prosections

World renowned hospitals for placements

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.

Modern lecture theatres and facilities

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

GP Placements every other week in first two years

Good transport links (to said GP placements and other stuff in London)

Masses of clubs and societies to join here

Charterhouse Square. Summerdaze. EPIC. That is all.

BL students know how to have a good time

We remain autonomous from Queen Mary (yep, so good I had to mention it twice :p:)




Cons

East London- erm, yeah, its hardly Chelsea or Kensington now is it. :p:

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.

Quite difficult to integrate with non-medics/dentists unless you live on the Mile End campus

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!

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. :p:

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.

You can get the odd lecturer who mumbles to themselves rather than talks to the students, but again, thats not specific to BL.

Most days start at 9am (especially if you have morning PBL sessions too)

Portfolios in the pre-clinical years seem pointless (probably more relevant for the older years, but doing them now is a bit meh)

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.

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.

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!
(edited 12 years ago)
Medicine Man

[*]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 clinics), 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. :p:


Oh no you didn't!!
digitalis
Oh no you didn't!!


I was hoping you wouldn't notice! :ninja:

Time for an edit methinks... :p:
Glasgow

Pros:


PBL is much less time consuming than going to lectures, not listening, and having to go home and learn it all anyway

Good unions
Generally fair exams

Long holidays (we had 5 weeks off for Xmas in 3rd year)

1st and 2nd year are pretty enjoyable and sociable

No pointlessly detailed anatomy teaching

Decent SSC choices, and the option to self-propose

Lots of ill people to see

The "study landscape" (unnecessary term for "library" ) is nice





Cons:


It is definitely "Teach Yourself Medicine" - there is barely any support except for an FAQ system where you submit questions which half the time aren't answered. If your question receives a response it's a lucky dip as to whether the answer's satisfactory. Wikipedia becomes one of your closest friends!

Varied quality of facilitators - you could come away from PBL with completely irrelevant questions and missing out really important ones. It would be more disastrous if it weren't for the fact that everyone has the "Facilitator's notes" which give an idea of the level of detail required. We're allegedly not supposed to have these but the nicer facilitators give them out.

Most of the lectures are just awful. I've never revised from any of the lectures we've had and it hasn't been detrimental to my performance at all.

3rd year in general was rubbish: some of the clinical skills 'teaching' was disgraceful (venepuncture involved a ppt presentation being put on our website), the quality of placements was highly varied (2 out of my 3 were dreadful - complained about one of them and nothing was done). Literally everyone in the year found the 4x2000 word coursework in 3rd year to be a MASSIVE waste of time and effort.

All of our exams for the year are given in one week in June which is insanely stressful at the time.

They can be really disorganised - timetable mix-ups and us being told things won't come up in an OSCE due to us never being taught it, and then it coming up anyway (it was discounted from the final score but without apology)

Glasgow weather in general, particularly winters.

Glasgow (and the surrounding) hospitals are generally a bit eugh inside (on ward I was on still had carpets...) and need to be done up

My take on St Andrews Bute Medical School

Pros:

- A brand new medical building is opening in september 2010.

- The vast majority of teachers are friendly and approachable as well as being very experienced and knowledgeable of their subject. (With only one or two exceptions.)

- Dissection starts pretty much immediately in first year and continues throughout.

- You get an honours degree after your first three years at medical school and then have the opportunity to study your clinical years at either Manchester, Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh universities. I'm looking forward to third year where you write a dissertation. (I'm not aware if other universities do this or not).

- St Andrews is an incredibly friendly, quaint and beautiful place. The university has loads of societies and if there isn't the one you want you can start it.

- Exams are marked incredibly quickly, the university has a three week results deadline after the end of semester exam period has finished. So far we have had our mid-semester results back in 7-10 days from sitting them.

- Clinical case pbl sessions and group work are fun and quite rewarding and are tied in well with the curriculum.

- I get the feeling that the people in charge genuinely care about the student experience in the medical school and are constantly striving to keep things fresh, up to date, challenging and enjoyable.

- A well structured course with quite heavy scientific detail and loads of anatomy.

- GALEN, GALEN, GALEN I can't stress enough how amazing this system is. (Can end up the centre of your world during reading weeks). It's the online system for the medical school and it is incredibly well laid out and organised. It is arranged into elements during each week and each element has all the details such as when, where and who will be taking the lecture as well as the learning objectives, powerpoint slides and the essential reading. They are very quick to update it if for whatever reason a lecture is move or cancelled. I was so pleasantly surprised about how well organised this system is and it definitely helped a lot with organisation and studying.

- The staff that run the course communicate well via e-mail so you always know what's going on.

- There is a good amount of pharmacology. (As well as one particularly awesome lecturer for the subject.)

- The anatomy museum, whilst it used to be small, had a good amount of books, models, skeletons and random bones which made things like osteology much more interesting to study and you had the access to bones whenever you wanted.


Cons:

- There's no two ways about it - St Andrews is an incredibly expensive place to live, when I started the cheapest accommodation was £3500 for a non-catered, non-ensuite single room. They are rebuilding one of these halls into a bigger, more expensive one, so the cheaper option is even more limited. The rest of the halls range from £4900 to over £6000. The university has frustrating charges for everything and anything you can think of, such as £15 for losing your matric card, room key - they even charge you £15 if you lock your key in your own room. I'm talking a keycard, in the halls where they use proper lock and keys charge £70 to replace it. From what I've seen the average flat price is £400pcm per room excluding bills. The shops are also expensive, word has it that the Tesco in St Andrews is the most expensive one in Britain and it has a crap range of food. There is a Morrisons but it's quite a long walk from all the halls of residence. If you like shopping and you're not into Superdry or Jack Wills, forget it - the closest option is Dundee.

- Since the place is so small, there is no real nightclub. There is bops on in the union on fridays and a few other options, but everything shuts at 2am at the latest and it is often 1am. There is a bus service to Fat Sams every wednesday, but if you're used to the night life of the big cities then it can be a bit of a let down.

- No past papers, they have a very limited range of exam type self study questions but I would have preferred past papers, I found this frustrating and initially I didn't really know what to expect with regards to the exams.

- No 24 hour library, or facilities. As a bit of a night owl I found this infuriating. The only thing that was 24 hours was a tiny, cramped computer room in which it was almost impossible to study.

- Way to much focus on an online e-portfolio system, the reflection and self study question didn't seem to serve much of a purpose, felt more of a mundane task that you just had to get done rather than a beneficial study aid.

- Some of the lecturers we're too stuck in their way and seem to refuse to budge. I often found myself in a lecture where there was either way too much information being thrown at me to possibly digest, or so little that it was frustratingly repetitive and boring. Whilst I said in the Pro's section that most of the lecturers were good, I dont doubt their expertise, but some of the lectures we're badly spread out and lacked structure.

- I didn't mind this personally, but many people thought the examination method was unfair. The short written answer questions in our exams tended to be very random. We had a 10 mark question on a subject in the mid-semester and end of semester that only had two two lectures on it, whereas much more substantial subjects were completely omitted. Another example is no upper limb questions despite about 15 lectures on it, yet one 10 mark question on 3 slides on dendritic cells.

- A lack of real clinical exposure. I felt the tuition we had on clinical matters was very superficial (I have only completed first year though.)

- Lectures we're not recorded. You might see this as being overly critical, but it was quite annoying if you couldn't avoid missing an important lecture and I know many other universities do this.

That's all I can think of right now.
I guess I should add my thoughts on some of this.

leemkule
My take on St Andrews Bute Medical School

Pros:

- A brand new medical building is opening in september 2010.

With only one lecture theatre so they are having to keep it booked solid from 0900 to 1800, say cheerio to nice friendly timetabling.

- The vast majority of teachers are friendly and approachable as well as being very experienced and knowledgeable of their subject. (With only one or two exceptions.)

- Dissection starts pretty much immediately in first year and continues throughout.

Whilst this was a big plus for me when applying, I did very rapidly find that the prosection and model based minitutorials during the dissections are vastly more useful, the rest of the two hour slots you spend hanging around very bored.

- You get an honours degree after your first three years at medical school and then have the opportunity to study your clinical years at either Manchester, Dundee, Aberdeen, Glasgow or Edinburgh universities. I'm looking forward to third year where you write a dissertation. (I'm not aware if other universities do this or not).

The dissertation was the highlight of the three years for me, even if the MD4003 clinical module was dire. As for the Bsc(hons) the cohort marking used in the medical school (and nowhere else in the uni) makes getting a decent grade require a superhuman amount of effort.

- St Andrews is an incredibly friendly, quaint and beautiful place. The university has loads of societies and if there isn't the one you want you can start it.

- Exams are marked incredibly quickly, the university has a three week results deadline after the end of semester exam period has finished. So far we have had our mid-semester results back in 7-10 days from sitting them.

- Clinical case pbl sessions and group work are fun and quite rewarding and are tied in well with the curriculum.

Obscenely boring, irrelevant, and serve only to test ones patience.

- I get the feeling that the people in charge genuinely care about the student experience in the medical school and are constantly striving to keep things fresh, up to date, challenging and enjoyable.

- A well structured course with quite heavy scientific detail and loads of anatomy.

I must say looking back on it, things did seem to be structured in a way that worked very well for me.

- GALEN, GALEN, GALEN I can't stress enough how amazing this system is. (Can end up the centre of your world during reading weeks). It's the online system for the medical school and it is incredibly well laid out and organised. It is arranged into elements during each week and each element has all the details such as when, where and who will be taking the lecture as well as the learning objectives, powerpoint slides and the essential reading. They are very quick to update it if for whatever reason a lecture is move or cancelled. I was so pleasantly surprised about how well organised this system is and it definitely helped a lot with organisation and studying.

Galen is awesome.

- The staff that run the course communicate well via e-mail so you always know what's going on.

- There is a good amount of pharmacology. (As well as one particularly awesome lecturer for the subject.)

There is potentially rather a lot too much pharmacology later in the course, a great deal of which is best described as historical pharmacology.

- The anatomy museum, whilst it used to be small, had a good amount of books, models, skeletons and random bones which made things like osteology much more interesting to study and you had the access to bones whenever you wanted.

There are also a couple of skeletons in the main library I believe. The medical section in the library however doesn't contain much else.


Cons:

- There's no two ways about it - St Andrews is an incredibly expensive place to live, when I started the cheapest accommodation was £3500 for a non-catered, non-ensuite single room. They are rebuilding one of these halls into a bigger, more expensive one, so the cheaper option is even more limited. The rest of the halls range from £4900 to over £6000. The university has frustrating charges for everything and anything you can think of, such as £15 for losing your matric card, room key - they even charge you £15 if you lock your key in your own room. I'm talking a keycard, in the halls where they use proper lock and keys charge £70 to replace it. From what I've seen the average flat price is £400pcm excluding bills. The shops are also expensive, word has it that the Tesco in St Andrews is the most expensive one in Britain and it has a crap range of food. There is a Morrisons but it's quite a long walk from all the halls of residence. If you like shopping and you're not into Superdry or Jack Wills, forget it - the closest option is Dundee.

- Since the place is so small, there is no real nightclub. There is bops on in the union on fridays and a few other options, but everything shuts at 2am at the latest and it is often 1am. There is a bus service to Fat Sams every wednesday, but if you're used to the night life of the big cities then it can be a bit of a let down.

- No past papers, they have a very limited range of exam type self study questions but I would have preferred past papers, I found this frustrating and initially I didn't really know what to expect with regards to the exams.

No past papers, but they also have a very poor record of changing exam papers from year to year.

- No 24 hour library, or facilities. As a bit of a night owl I found this infuriating. The only thing that was 24 hours was a tiny, cramped computer room in which it was almost impossible to study.

- Way to much focus on an online e-portfolio system, the reflection and self study question didn't seem to serve much of a purpose, felt more of a mundane task that you just had to get done rather than a beneficial study aid.

The reflections are a complete waste of time, I would suggest sharing reflections with mates and slightly rephrasing them.

- Some of the lecturers we're too stuck in their way and seem to refuse to budge. I often found myself in a lecture where there was either way too much information being thrown at me to possibly digest, or so little that it was frustratingly repetitive and boring. Whilst I said in the Pro's section that most of the lecturers were good, I dont doubt their expertise, but some of the lectures we're badly spread out and lacked structure.

Many of them don't respond well to criticism, even when they personally ask for feedback and then don't like it.

- I didn't mind this personally, but many people thought the examination method was unfair. The short written answer questions in our exams tended to be very random. We had a 10 mark question on a subject in the mid-semester and end of semester that only had two two lectures on it, whereas much more substantial subjects were completely omitted. Another example is no upper limb questions despite about 15 lectures on it, yet one 10 mark question on 3 slides on dendritic cells.

My year moaned about this too, its the only way to try and separate out the year group between those learning everything, and those learning most things. Otherwise everybody nails the exams and you need a silly percentage to get a half decent grade.

- A lack of real clinical exposure. I felt the tuition we had on clinical matters was very superficial (I have only completed first year though.)

Wait till third year, vastly more then (and exactly when you don't have time for it).

- Lectures we're not recorded. You might see this as being overly critical, but it was quite annoying if you couldn't avoid missing an important lecture and I know many other universities do this.

They will be next year onwards.

That's all I can think of right now.

Give it a year or two and you'll find half the booklist still in plastic shrinkwrap, having paid a fortune for the books at the start. Considering all the lecture materials are available in advance in great detail I would suggest only buying Drake, and then also buying Last's anatomy, and the colouring book.

terpineol
I guess I should add my thoughts on some of this.


"Way to much focus on an online e-portfolio system, the reflection and self study question didn't seem to serve much of a purpose, felt more of a mundane task that you just had to get done rather than a beneficial study aid.

The reflections are a complete waste of time, I would suggest sharing reflections with mates and slightly rephrasing them."

Well, I guess I feel much better knowing it's not just us who have to do this ridiculously pointless exercise!
crazylemon
Pros:
London and inter london med school banter
Rotations can mean you get a pleasant surprise of a 1 day week and can pretend to be doing an arts course. This comes back to bite you in the arse when you get the full 9-6 week a few weeks later though.
Old Personal tutor not giving a **** and leaving me to my own devices
If you want to go out, someone will be every night
Dissection if that is your thing, I prefer prosection personally so wander of to the prosections leaving other people to fight over who gets to cut the heart out.
Reynolds

Cons:
New personal tutor does give a **** and made me sit though a 1.5 hour session on how to learn.
PBHell followed by PBHell exam that test totally different skills to that PBHell was trying to harness (most likely reason I will fail)
Random scanning into lectures- ******* annoying
Medical school insulates itself almost totally from other courses. Pisses me off I actually like IC people and so as a result have been called, 'not a real medic' this sort of insular attitude and arrogance means that most of the rest of the uni would quite like to see us burst into flames.
Placements that end up being miles out in 1st year. I dodged the bullet thankfully.
Blackboard the most useless system designed
eportfolio


Looking at that why am I still here....


You are lucky with dissection. Five years ago I came to ICSM eager eyed for some dissection only to find out we would be the only year group in god knows how many years to make do with prosections. A big shame. Anatomy teaching at imperial certainly comes under a lot of stick as well.

As for things being miles out in the first year. They're just minor days out in gp or whatever. Wait till clinicals where you'll be all over the place for large chunks of the year.
terpineol
I guess I should add my thoughts on some of this.


It's interesting to see your input after the 3 years. I heard about the 8am lectures. Not cool.

I too found myself bored in dissection class, but that was mainly due to the fact that I never prepared properly or maybe that's just what I'm trying to convince myself. However, there is loads of people in my year that seem to love it.

As for the odd grading system, I've heard a few people talking about this with regards to exams too. I don't know if it was just chinese whispers, but things like people getting 80% and only getting a 14 etc.

The fact that they don't change the exam questions too much is strange - surely they have worked out that a quick conversation with the people above will give you a good idea of what is coming up. I was really meaning that I just didn't know what to expect - but I suppose that's the point in the MSA.

Oh, and our OSPE's were identical to the year before.


Where (if at all) are you going for your clinical years? Kinda recall reading that you had your doubts about continuing on to qualify as a doctor. Just curious as I've been thinking lately about which university I'm going to pick as my first choice for clinical years and so far I haven't got a clue.
crazylemon
Depends how you learn, I would prefer prosection personally. We don't have enough time for anatomy. Simple as. 1 hour session to do the entire pelvis (male and female) was never going to happen.

Oh I know, mild annoyance rather than anything else I do realise this!


Tbh I don't think many people would find the dissections that useful. But it was one of the reasons I personally chose imperial over my other choices and I was gutted to find there'd be only prosections.

There isn't anywhere near enough time dedicated to anatomy teaching though and once you start firms you'll realise you probably know virtually no anatomy at all, even the clinically relevant stuff. Imperial are much more concerned with receptors and intracellular signalling etc. so anatomy takes very much a back seat. All the local consultants comment on it. As a uni, our anatomy knowledge is pretty dire. Its importance is debatable of course but students from UCL, Kings etc. seem to be **** hot compared to ICSM.
leemkule
It's interesting to see your input after the 3 years. I heard about the 8am lectures. Not cool.

I too found myself bored in dissection class, but that was mainly due to the fact that I never prepared properly or maybe that's just what I'm trying to convince myself. However, there is loads of people in my year that seem to love it.

As for the odd grading system, I've heard a few people talking about this with regards to exams too. I don't know if it was just chinese whispers, but things like people getting 80% and only getting a 14 etc.

The fact that they don't change the exam questions too much is strange - surely they have worked out that a quick conversation with the people above will give you a good idea of what is coming up. I was really meaning that I just didn't know what to expect - but I suppose that's the point in the MSA.

Oh, and our OSPE's were identical to the year before.


Where (if at all) are you going for your clinical years? Kinda recall reading that you had your doubts about continuing on to qualify as a doctor. Just curious as I've been thinking lately about which university I'm going to pick as my first choice for clinical years and so far I haven't got a clue.


I'm off to manchester. Were I choosing again I would be very tempted by Aberdeen.
terpineol
Were I choosing again I would be very tempted by Aberdeen.


We could have been drinking buddies. :frown:
Reply 178
Manchester

Just finished first year, so a shielded view of the whole thing, but can give my 1st year opinions

Pros
-Great dissection experience
-Heavily PBL based. i like this but others may hate. im 23 and personally learn well from reading from books as opposed to attending lectures (of which i have gone to less than 10 all year)
-The stuff we learn is quite clinically oriented, so i feel im learning 'proper stuff' as apposed to ridiculous science i'll never need to know
-Awesome city. cant imagine any other is as good (bar london which costs an arm and a leg)
-Good library with excellent lending facilities. I finished the whole year without havinng to buy a single text book. I was smart and got in early with the long loan books, but have had them since september and most of them (some were recalled) are sitting with me here back home. I think this is pretty awesome
-Cheap living
-Nearly forgot, the mummies and daddies scheme. socially and academically means you always have someone in the year above to ask about thing and talk about any problems. i assume many med schools have a peer mentor scheme, but i recon ours is particularly good :smile:

Cons
-Too easy. Worries me how myself and friends did very little work and passed in the 2nd quartile for the year. i expected medicine to be a challenge
-Examinations. Firstly quite easy as said above. Secondly poorly set out. Only two main exams for the year (both MCQ). Two progress tests which are a joke for a first year. And then OSCE's and an SSC project. Compared to friends at UCL and brum who have lots of exams (30+), i think this is ridiculous. Also not enough anatomy content in exams
-Portfolio. i assume many places have to do this, but its complete ********. along with the fact that its complete ********, the thing that annoyed me most was the woman who assessed it didnt even read my reflected pieces. it was clearly a box ticking job. waste
-Manchester got me excited about all the great early clinical experience.... i wasnt impressed. in total 3 GP visits and 3 hospital visits for the year all at places f'kin miles away from me. travel not compensated and expensive long journeys for an experience that wasnt all that worth it

Overall loving it, manchester and medicine. hoping i can handle 2nd year and onwards as im assuming it will get harder and worried at how easy its been so far. might be in for a shock
Reply 179
crazylemon
These are bad things :lolwut: Are you sure you just smart friend group? The people who spent the entire year at ICSM partying (some did 6 nights out a week for a while and then trimmed this down to 3...) managed to pass. Others worked and just managed to get through. It depends what sort of person you are.
We had similar thing wrt clinical experience and the lovely portfolio.


they are bad things in a 'me trying to be mature' kind of way. i wouldnt say myself and some of my friends are that naturally bright. i just worry alot about how we can pass with little effort when we're going into an important profession that requires alot more diligence. in a weird way, im hoping that it gets harder in year 2 onwards, and hoping that i have to start working a little harder

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