My best and worse placements were............because........

I thought I'd just make a thread asking folks about what there favourite/least favourite placements were and why.

Having started 4th year, for me my favourite has been paediatrics, the staff (docs and nurses, and midwives actually) have been great, put effort into teaching and are generally nice people. I also find paeds interesting and get along with kids.

My least favourite has been General Surgery, mainly because they've been rigid in terms of attendance, especially in theatres, which have been dead boring. I also was placed rurally, so didn't see much anyway. Still very much the stereotype of "in early, full days" but without much teaching at all in between.

Reply 1

junior.doctor

18

My worst placement was probably ENT. In final year we had a weird 6-week module that was a week each of a few random leftover specialties that we hadn't done elsewhere, that they turned into a handy acronym. I turned up for my ENT week to find that they'd closed all the ENT theatres for the week for a deep clean, nearly all the consultants were on leave, all the clinics were cancelled and there were only a couple of inpatients. So I sat in the library for a week. Ortho placement was hard because there were so many of us students that it was really hard to see or do anything.

Best placements... I loved my 2 weeks in the GUM clinic, fantastic charismatic fun team who let me get stuck in and were just genuinely really passionate and enthusiastic about their work. Although they had different students every couple of weeks, they still took the time to make me part of the team. I enjoyed the work too, being able to ask patients absolutely anything about the most intimate details of their lives and having to have good communication skills in order to do that sensitively. Also liked obstetrics, again mainly because I was able to get stuck in and be part of the team. Also liked oncology - great teaching and again a really passionate and enthusiastic team. Anaesthetics was great because as well as learning loads, in those moments during surgery where everything is calm and stable from an anaesthetic point of view, I got lots of one to one teaching from an anaesthetist on useful physiology and such - which was really valuable.

My enjoyment or dislike of placements has always mostly depended not on my enjoyment of the specialty, but on the team and department and and being made to feel welcome / being allowed to get stuck in / good teaching.

Reply 2

Democracy

20

As junior.doctor says, my enjoyment/dislike of placements was almost entirely based on how well organised the placement was, how much I got to do, the quality of teaching, how friendly the department was etc.

So based on that, my favourite placements were anaesthetics and GP - both very hands on with lots of consultant time and very good teaching. Paeds was also really good and very well organised at the hospital I was assigned to.

My least favourite placement was orthopaedics since the consultant was on leave for the duration of the placement, the juniors were a bit grumpy and it was ages away. It was generally an all round pain of a rotation, especially when it came to getting signed off at the end due to the fact that we (unsurprisingly) couldn't get any of the consultants to say they'd been supervising us in any meaningful sense of the word.

I can't really think of any placement I disliked solely based on the specialty involved - those random community placements where they make you sit through hours of waffle over tea and biscuits were pretty trying though.

Reply 3

nexttime

22

Anything involving clerking new patients was the best.

Anything involving having to go to theatre was the worst.

Reply 4

Letournel

15

Best - Ortho and Crit care at MTC

Worst - Anything involving being on a general ward for hours and hours

Reply 5

*pitseleh*

20

Original post by junior.doctor

My enjoyment or dislike of placements has always mostly depended not on my enjoyment of the specialty, but on the team and department and and being made to feel welcome / being allowed to get stuck in / good teaching.

This! For these exact reasons, one of the placements I really loved (weirdly for someone who knew from day one that they didn't want to be a surgeon) was T+O; there was a lot of teaching, and the consultants made the effort to learn our names, talk to us like human beings and teach us whenever they got chance. Should be the norm, but it wasn't!

I also loved A+E as it was the first placement where I felt like I was useful/not just in the way; it was more like an apprenticeship than most med school placements, where you're there more as an observer. Again, it helped that the department were very friendly and welcoming, and keen on teaching.

One of the worst (again, weirdly for someone who loves psych) was psychiatry - consultants who weren't fussed about teaching, and no real effort to find anything for med students to do. I also disliked clinic-heavy specialties as there's nothing more soporific than sitting in the back of someone else's consultations day in, day out.

Reply 6

That Bearded Man

OP

22

Original post by *pitseleh*

This! For these exact reasons, one of the placements I really loved (weirdly for someone who knew from day one that they didn't want to be a surgeon) was T+O; there was a lot of teaching, and the consultants made the effort to learn our names, talk to us like human beings and teach us whenever they got chance. Should be the norm, but it wasn't!

I also loved A+E as it was the first placement where I felt like I was useful/not just in the way; it was more like an apprenticeship than most med school placements, where you're there more as an observer. Again, it helped that the department were very friendly and welcoming, and keen on teaching.

One of the worst (again, weirdly for someone who loves psych) was psychiatry - consultants who weren't fussed about teaching, and no real effort to find anything for med students to do. I also disliked clinic-heavy specialties as there's nothing more soporific than sitting in the back of someone else's consultations day in, day out.

Tbis is interesting because I actually like clinics. I find I enjoy the 1 on 1

Reply 7

*pitseleh*

20

Original post by That Bearded Man

Tbis is interesting because I actually like clinics. I find I enjoy the 1 on 1

I think it depends how much the consultant gets you involved with the clinic. If they wanted you to lead some of the appointments under observation, I found it a lot more worthwhile than if they just expected you to watch them all the time. I find I learn much better by trying things out and being critiqued rather than observing and making notes, so the hands-on approach worked much better for me. :smile:

Reply 8

tania<3

15

Loved my paediatrics placement too because it was well organised, good teaching, and the doctors were all really lovely. NICU was awesome!

I hate surgery but all my surgical placements have been rather chill so I've not been too stressed with them... I'd probably say the most "unchill" placement was cardiology, ward rounds were LONG and it was so, so boring. Was also placed far away, with a consultant who was a total keenbean and expected us to hang around a lot so... :/

Reply 9

That Bearded Man

OP

22

Original post by *pitseleh*

I think it depends how much the consultant gets you involved with the clinic. If they wanted you to lead some of the appointments under observation, I found it a lot more worthwhile than if they just expected you to watch them all the time. I find I learn much better by trying things out and being critiqued rather than observing and making notes, so the hands-on approach worked much better for me. :smile:

I

Original post by *pitseleh*

I think it depends how much the consultant gets you involved with the clinic. If they wanted you to lead some of the appointments under observation, I found it a lot more worthwhile than if they just expected you to watch them all the time. I find I learn much better by trying things out and being critiqued rather than observing and making notes, so the hands-on approach worked much better for me. :smile:

Some of them wpuld let us do 1v1 with patient and then summarise the case to them after theyve seen another patient.

My best and worse placements were............because........

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