Pros and cons of your med school?

Reply 100

15

Becca-Sarah

Anyone else get the email from the med school book (can't rememeber the exact name, but it's one of those pre-fresher things telling you where to go) asking for contributors to write about their own med school? Worth doing? I suspect they won't permit criticism, however constructive it may be, though....

One of my friends has just done BLs...

AS for a con for BL: The Class of 2009 have graduated. Bad times. We're all doctors. Good times. :wink:

Reply 101

Gizmo!

11

nottingham -

pros -
1. some halls virtually on top of the QMC. roll out of bed into lectures/seminar etc
its biggest strength in my opinion, since that a massive saving in time and legwork you get everyday for years. always pick a med skool thats next to its digs. :wink:

2. lecture eavy course, meaning you can skip some lectures that dont tickle you... remember, i didnt say that though.

3. an interesting mixed style course, wif elements of everyfing, its not really any one type of course. well, more traditional than anyfing else, but even so, not really that traditional.

4. excellent city and town nearby for cheap living and ents. you'll appreciate that over five years.

5. last but definitely not least, the staff do a wonderful job of looking after you 'ere, and run the course with remarkable efficiency.

6. a beautiful campus. nicest in the country, i would say.

7. exams arent that bad. 40% pasmarks mean you can pass wiffout much work. personally i would prefer if the work was more medicine/clincal practice focused and the pass mark was igher, though, so we would be forced to learn what is important very well, rather than being able to pass by selecting whats easiest to learn.

cons -

1. old style elements of the course still persist, such as dissection 'under pressure'. very silly really, especially since its clinical relevance has been stripped away to the point that its not even examined eg. 1 mark out of about 50 in the last spotter exam related to clinical relevances. very stupid waste of time, effort and our money. you'll find yourself surrounded by idiots who fink its bloody wonderful though.

2. predominantly public school make up. as much even as some of the london schools like georgies. its a sad state of affairs that we miss out on our local students when we are called the University on Nottingham. The med school ends up feeling like an international college of London at times, because it has no bearing whatsoever on the locality, pretty poor show for a med school.

3. the pretentiousness of med students. A LOT of them do fink they are God's gift. Yet most of them will ignore a lost, elderly patient in the hospital, which is a pretty poor show.
Furthermore, a lot of them will pretend to do no work, yet spend the 'ole day on the learning intranet in their bedroom with the door closed. childish tripe.

4. campus life feels like that too sometimes, but at least its fun fun fun, except for weekwends when things seem to gradually ....close.

Reply 102

Medic400

At peninsula if you've done the first two years and done 'no' anatomy you're really going to struggle in the clinical years as you keep doing it to a higher level and you'll be tested on it constantly, i feel for you if so, where were you when it was taught in the first two years? It is taught, and theres plenty of resources to learn it from.

A con for peninsula is we dont get tested on anatomy in exams formally, but we are tested every week in assessment in 3/4 year and anatomy comes up a lot, if you've done pre clinical and not bothered to learn it because no one spent hours showing you powerpoints on it then you might struggle.

I think the comment that peninsula is full of losers who are really upset they couldnt get in anywhere else is a bit harsh - i dont know anyone like that, maybe its just you who thinks peninsula is crap

Reply 103

Helio2065

Any newcastle/kings' med students have something to say?
Any international med students too?? from Canada would be nice :wink:

Also, I'm debating b/w SGUL and southampton, any thoughts?

Reply 104

magichearts

7

Does anyone have any pro/cons for University of Sheffield??? It'll be great to hear from you. :smile:

Thanks!

Reply 105

BlueRoses

14

Helio2065

Any newcastle/kings' med students have something to say?
Any international med students too?? from Canada would be nice :wink:

Also, I'm debating b/w SGUL and southampton, any thoughts?

Sorry, I thought I'd done one for Newcastle! :smile:

PROS:
- Very integrated course. We have quite a lot of lectures but have practical anatomy sessions and have been learning clinical skills since the beginning.
- Getting started on clinical skills early on - we've already had an OSCE, having done respiratory, abdomen and cardio exams, venesection, CPR. There are also two communication stations.
- The emphasis on communication skills. Maybe a bit dull and easy but it's very important. We have video sessions and roleplaying and all that.
- Hospital and GP visits throughout the year. The GP visits are great!
- Med school is right next to the biggest halls of residence.
- Everything is case based so it helps to see the relevance of what
you're doing.
- Opportunity to be based in many areas in the North East in 3rd and 5th year
- Lots of SSCs and all that.
- Excellent community spirit at the university and especially within the med school.
- The AU and other societies are all very sociable and seem well attended.

The important stuff
- Newcastle completely deserves its rep as an insane student city and nightlife!
- MedSoc: free drinks (diesel, cider, VKs) for med students every friday night at the union.
- £2 trebles!!!

Cons:
- All the PPD can get a bit dull. Personally I love it though!
- Most people don't pay that much attention to the cases, which can make it a bit difficult to sort out your filing: by case or by module?! (v. important :p:

)
- Hospital visits stop being a novelty after the first one and are just a bit dull. My year complained about this lots though so hopefully it'll be sorted :wink:

- Lots of rahs
- You might end up in Middlesborough for 3rd or 5th year....

Reply 106

Helio2065

Thank you so much! and the speedy reply :smile:

I really appreciate it!
There are some stuff I don't understand though lol sorry, being an international student, names really throw me off lol and acronyms always baffle me haha

What's OSCE? SSC? AU? rahs? Middlesborough?
Also, I know this is really important but I just don't quite understand the diff b/w case and module

ALSO!
Does anybody have any thoughts on Sheffield? I heard they're very recceptive to international students

Reply 107

Becca-Sarah

19

Helio2065

What's OSCE? SSC? AU? rahs? Middlesborough?

OSCE = Objective Structured Clinical Examination. Basically you have 'stations' where you have a fake patient, and you have to examine them and answer questions about them, or communicate with them about a particular issue. It's an exam.

SSC = Student Selected Component. The GMC wants us all to do stuff outside of the core curriculum, so SSC's allow you to study languages, or a particular aspect of medicine that interests you, etc. Different medical schools offer different things, but only slighty.

AU = Athletics Union. Controls all the sports clubs and teams, etc.

Rahs = posh people. Kind of. See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rah

Middlesborough = a town in the Midlands. Not universally popular with anybody. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesbrough

Reply 108

BlueRoses

14

Becca-Sarah

OSCE = Objective Structured Clinical Examination. Basically you have 'stations' where you have a fake patient, and you have to examine them and answer questions about them, or communicate with them about a particular issue. It's an exam.

SSC = Student Selected Component. The GMC wants us all to do stuff outside of the core curriculum, so SSC's allow you to study languages, or a particular aspect of medicine that interests you, etc. Different medical schools offer different things, but only slighty.

AU = Athletics Union. Controls all the sports clubs and teams, etc.

Rahs = posh people. Kind of. See http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rah

Middlesborough = a town in the Midlands. Not universally popular with anybody. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlesbrough

Cheers love!

Reply 109

Helio2065

Thank you so much guys, I really appreciate it :smile:

Reply 110

BlueRoses

14

Case = A group of lectures and seminars and practicals all based around a fake "case" such as The Man With A Lump in His Groin.

Modules = Bigger group of lectures, seminars and practicals, encompassing many cases. Eg. Nutrition, Metabolism and Endicrinology or Medicine in the Community

Reply 111

busdepp

what about leicester? anyone studying there?

what are the pros and cons of studying there?

Reply 112

Renal

17

busdepp

what about leicester? anyone studying there?

what are the pros and cons of studying there?

Why don't you tell us about your medical school... :mad:

Reply 113

beccy.

11

Helio2065

What's OSCE? SSC? AU? rahs? Middlesborough?

this genuinely made me LOL for about 5 minutes.
rep for you at midnight.

Reply 114

frodo21

1

Don't know if anyone has done one for GKT (KCLMS officially) so here goes:

Pros
- Dissection, quite useful if you can get over the smell of the dissection room
- Very good anatomy teachers
- No PBL
- Most of the scenarios are well taught (CBL)
- New Hunts House Library is excellent if you don't want to buy any books, plus there are 4 other libraries (Strand, Waterloo, WEC and the library in St Thomas).
- Exams are MCQs (this is a plus for me since I was used to writing essays in exams for my medical biochemistry degree) plus no negative marking or confidence marking.
- London is the place to be!
- Guy's bar: cheap drinks plus really good atmosphere especially when there is a really big football match on.
- Extracurricular: Sports, Societies etc, you will definitely find something for you.
- Culture, since it is in London there is a mix of all cultures.
- GP visits were useful and quite interesting.
- Most of the halls of residents are in working distance to guy's campus. Wolfson house is on top of the main lecure theatre (Greenwood)
- Guy's Campus looks really nice and has a nice feel to it.
- Apparently being posted out to one of the out firms in 3rd year onwards is really good as you get excellent teaching ( coming from my friend who just finished 4th year).

Cons
- 9.00 am lecs (there weren't that many but i'm just not a morning person)
- First year hospital visits were quite pointless in my opinion, not very organised.
- Inter -professional education pointless (but not unique to GKT).
- There is a lot to learn so you should definitely work from the start or you end up really stressed like I did this year (also not unique to this med school).
- no true and false MCQs anymore.

Reply 115

definite_maybe

4

Anyone got pro's and cons for Birmingham?

Reply 116

chloemo14

13

becca2389

- intercalated BSc: probably the broadest range of options and lots of arts subjects on offer as well as pure science. Also allows you to be a proper student with an 8 hour week which will be nice after two years of 9-5. And if more study isn't your thing, some people are allowed to use the year to travel.

I'm terribly sorry to post on the medical students forum as someone yet to apply, please don't hurt me :p:

I was just interested in this point - I think it sounds absoloutly fantastic, but I cant find anymore information anywhere. I checked the website and prospectus, but that only gives me a list and a PDF with only science options - I was wondering if this is a chance in policy, or are the arts subjects just not as widely advertised?

Reply 117

username43584

8

chloemo14

I'm terribly sorry to post on the medical students forum as someone yet to apply, please don't hurt me :p:

I was just interested in this point - I think it sounds absoloutly fantastic, but I cant find anymore information anywhere. I checked the website and prospectus, but that only gives me a list and a PDF with only science options - I was wondering if this is a chance in policy, or are the arts subjects just not as widely advertised?

No probs: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool/bsc-ibsc/

Lots of other med schools do humanities BScs. Birmingham has a good history of medicine course (though not as broad as the Wellcome Trust's one in my opinion) as well as Ethics and Law, I think. King's does Medical Ethics. Imperial has the option of doing History of Medicine or something else humanities-like instead of a science project, and I think maybe the same is true for Oxford? Bristol has a fantastic Medical Humanities one that combines History, Philosophy and English which I would have applied for if it had been at a London university. A fair few do International Health.

Reply 118

visesh

17

Cambridge also has a rather wide range of 'intercalated' ("Part II") subjects to choose from, including languages, history, history and philosophy of science, law, politics etc. in addition to the sciences not limited to the biomedical stuff. AFAIK, we can do pretty much anything offered by the university!