Wednesday 6 April 2011
In Response to Fuzz's Question
I feel that the workload in first year depends greatly on your perspective. I remember at the time I felt like there was a lot to do, especially during the first term whilst you are getting used to the PBL process, but looking back now I realise that in comparison to later years there was very little. PBL works in two week modules. You meet as a group of 7-8 people on the first day of the process to set objectives. These are created in the context of a scenario set by the medical school and in first year are based around four themes: Structure and Function (Anatomy and Physiology), Individuals Groups and Societies (Sociology), Population Perspective (Epidemiology), and Pr0fessional Values and Ethics. You then decide which of your objectives you will research for the following meeting and go away and learn about them. You come back the following meeting (a week later) and discuss what you have learnt. You then repeat this with the other half of the objectives. The sessions are all supervised by a facilitator (ususally a member of medical staff) and a nominated student is chairman. Im afraid it is rather difficult for me to give examples as you do not do PBL in 5th year- maybe one of my colleagues could help with this. Aside from PBL there is a plenary every morning during first year that I beleive are still video-linked from liverpool- again I am probably not the best person to discuss these. During your week you will also have two hours in the Clinical Anatomy Learning Centre, two hours of clinical skills at the Royal Lancaster Infirmary and Communication Skills Sessions. All in all, I think there is a lot of work in first year as you settle into how the PBL process works and into medical school in general but I don't think would be particular to Lancaster. You do require good self-motivation on the medical course though as you need to be able to take responsibilty for your own learning- there is nobody who will nag you to do the work but it will be noticed if its not done. I hope this helps a little with your question and if you want any clarification of things that I have said do not hesitiate to ask Leanne
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The scenarios are usually about an A4 page long so it would be difficult to write a whole one out (I can if you're desperate to have one) but to sum up one that we have done recently: a patient is in discomfort and his wife asks him if it's his indigestion again and if he got something for it from the pharmacist like she said or try some of her ulcer tablets. He says he's not sick and that the dr already has enough ill people to deal with. Last time he was advised to lose weight and give up smoking so he's not going. The patient's wife's cousin suggests he goes to the GP and they might 'use one of those tube things to look in his stomach'. The wife says that the dr will say it's her husband's decision. The patient is referred to a gastroenterologist in secondary care, etc, etc. So you would pick out key words like indigestion, 'try some of her ulcer tablets' and so on.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of plenaries, yes they are still video-linked in from Liverpool although we do have a few live ones.
In answer to the first part of your question, I personally chose medicine because for me it was the perfect combination of everything I wanted from a career: you're constantly learning; working with people; learning about the body which is the most fascinating topic; it's so varied because you can go into so many different specialities and also the range of illnesses is massive; I could go on! For me nothing else compared to it.
To answer the first part of your second question, I don't think it puts you at a disadvantage if you haven't done biology at A-level, as you cover all the basic and more in-depth, anatomy and physiology in 1st year. So you will quickly pick up anything other people might have learnt in A-level.
ReplyDeleteAs to the second part of your question, the main factor which made me choose medicine was that I loved working with people, whether that was with the elderly or children. Before medical school I had some experience with working with both of these age groups and really enjoyed it, so that coupled with my interest in science, it led me into medicine, which I have thoroughly enjoyed. I wasn't someone who always knew they wanted to do medicine and I also found it a difficult choice. But I just had to ask myself could I see myself in that role and would I enjoy it. In the end, it was something I thought I would be happy doing as a career, but it is a very personal choice and completely up to you whether you think you would enjoy medicine or something else.
Hope that helps.
One of the doctors i recently spoke to put it to me like this
ReplyDelete'medicine has so many sub specialities and paths you can can choose from that if you don't find some aspect of it you enjoy then you probably won't find any other job that you do'.
As carly said in the last post, many medics choose this path because they love working with people but there's always the option of working in labs and research if that isn't your thing. The variety is almost endless
Thank you all for your responses, they were all very helpful.
ReplyDelete