It's all good on my end. First term has been busy and some parts of it I did find boring and irrelevant (similar to the usual MBBS course). FFC and Rollerball have had to bear my complaints and moans at some points though, but then again almost everyone intercalating that I have spoken to (at least at BL) finds some/all aspects of their course boring and "misses medicine", myself included.
The first module was comparing traditional courses with PBL, the reasons behind PBL, what motivates students to learn (i.e. would medical students still learn even if there was no exam at the end of the year?), and professionalism/portfolios, all of which was kinda fun. The second module though was so much better! We looked at selection for medical school (and got to design our ideal medical school selection system), widening access, gender/social class/educational/culture/ethnicity demographics at medical school and in particular specialities (O&G, Paeds and Ortho in particular), transformation from student to doctor and the "hidden" curriculum. The third module we start in Jan will be looking at examinations and how fair they are. Our fourth module, which sorta runs throughout the year is the Teaching module where we get to facilitate PBL sessions, give lectures, teach clinical skills, facilitate simulation exercises, facilitate comm skills, teach anatomy, and do some teacher observations. Probably the best module tbh because its very hands on.
We have a somewhat opinionated group (12 of us) which I think is fantastic - I actually look forward to our group sessions and we all really do get along with each other. D'awwww.
Like I said in an earlier post, there aren't usually any right or wrong answers with Med Ed so long as you can justify your answer with some educational theory, so its really nice to bounce ideas and opinions off each other. It's like real life TSR really, and I quite like it tbh.
Main problems for me are the stacks and stacks of reading to do (we get about half an inch of double sided, multiple-sheets-per-page reading to do each week
), the non-stop essay assignments (which apparently reduce drastically next term), and the reflective writing we have to keep up with on top of all the teaching/learning/assessments. Sometimes, I do think this should be a BA and not a BSc, but having completed the first term (which is apparently the hardest/most tedious) with an exam on the first day back in Jan, I'd like to think its going ok so far.
Second year now? How is that? Still gunning for Peninsula as always?