last medsoc event of the year

panda100

tintinr35 wrote:

does med-soc not encompass all the health sciences???

No just medical students but like any society any one can join it if they want so do join next year

humbert

panda100 wrote:

You have to appreciate the fact that we are in UCD for a total of 7 years.In my four years here so far,you get to know pretty much everyone in medicine and there seemed to be a lot of apathy towards vainglorys question.

You have to appreciate the fact that most meds feel very hard done by the union,so when vainglory said 'as my capacity as education officer' there was a collective groan from many of my peers. The union's not nice to us etc, etc.

I assume then the objection to the question was born out of resentment for the union rather than the earlier, taking up valuable question time, argument, if so referring to it as "silly" would be a bit immature as the union was acting in the interest of others in the medical profession. I don't think anyone was mistaking arrogance for isolation except perhaps you, as you say it, you seem to be suggesting that your isolation is the source of the arrogance and as you suggest resentment which may be the case but I'd doubt it.
Tbh I don't think the questions that were asked or might have been asked by the meds will go far to produce "drastic change in the health service".

panda100

humbert wrote:

I assume then the objection to the question was born out of resentment for the union rather than the earlier, taking up valuable question time, argument, if so referring to it as "silly" would be a bit immature as the union was acting in the interest of others in the medical profession. I don't think anyone was mistaking arrogance for isolation except perhaps you, as you say it, you seem to be suggesting that your isolation is the source of the arrogance and as you suggest resentment which may be the case but I'd doubt it.
Tbh I don't think the questions that were asked or might have been asked by the meds will go far to produce "drastic change in the health service".

No my objection to the question was due to the fact that it took up valuable question time for other people about the matter at hand.For example If willie O'Dea came to UCD to debate Irelands involvment in the war in Iraq and then I asked him talk about the state of crime in his native Limerick.It wouldnt be fair to the people who have gone to hear a debate about Ireland and the war in Iraq.They are two completly different problems and their is a time and a place for these two very differnt problems.

Yes I was suggesting that the meds so called 'arrogance' is due to their isolation away from the rest of the camous. Me and my fellow meds are constantly called arrogant by other facultys and I can assure you we are not.Hence the only reason I can think of for you calling us arrogant is because we are not actively around UCD and dont experience the same UCD as you do so you mistake our indiffernce for belfield as arrogance.
All the questions that were asked last night from matthew,Donal B,Claire all people I know as med students and doctors were questions that I wanted answered as a med student.They may have been boring to listen to as a non student perspective but for me and many others they, from Dr Hillary in particular, it cleared up a lot about me practising as a future doctor.

Vorsprung

Basically, what Panda said.

Panda100 wrote:

You have to appreciate the fact that most meds feel very hard done by the union,so when vainglory said 'as my capacity as education officer' there was a collective groan from many of my peers. Every year we get canvassers trapseing thorugh the terrace for the political hacks annual trek into the city centre,where they offer us the sun,moon and stars.

Not too get too bitchy about it, but we rarely see SU officers (except for the excellent Colm Byrne) out in the Terrace. I think there was some sort of system were they did a couple of hours a week out there before Christmas, but in my 4 years in college, that's all I've seen. That's one term, and a few hours a week. So MedSoc is the de facto union out there. In fact, there was a move a few years ago to separate SU in the Terrace, one of the main reasons it didn't happen (I'm told) is because the students who were pushing it had too much work on their hands, so it never happened.

As Elisa said, we get potential officers coming in every year promising the world. We end up with nothing extra. There is not one single tap with drinking water in the Terrace, so if you want water, you have to buy it. There is no hot food ANYWHERE near the Terrace after 3pm, so most people in the Library who haven't got something with them end up with a roll, bag of crisps and bottle of water/coffee. Closest hot food to the Terrace at that hour is Burger King on Baggot St.

sportswear

bigjim and panda couldn't agree with you both more.

btw i didn't get to attend the debate. what was the upshot of it??? do youz reckon that we will be on 48 hour a week by 2009 (the year i qualify)?
does this mean that our income will be halved as we loose all our overtime?

are they counting 'on call' as working?

panda100

sportswear wrote:

bigjim and panda couldn't agree with you both more.

btw i didn't get to attend the debate. what was the upshot of it??? do youz reckon that we will be on 48 hour a week by 2009 (the year i qualify)?
does this mean that our income will be halved as we loose all our overtime?

are they counting 'on call' as working?

Mary Harney said that at the moment all junior docs work 9-5!! There was a big laugh for that one.She basically said that the oncalls were overtime and our perogative. From the debate though it does seem that things will have vastly improved by 2009. Since my sister started her intern year 7 years ago things have improved and since my bro started a year ago things seem to be slowly moving forward.
ah in a laptop free area and librocop just told me off for using it...naughty me...best be off!!

Vorsprung

sportswear wrote:

bigjim and panda couldn't agree with you both more.

btw i didn't get to attend the debate. what was the upshot of it??? do youz reckon that we will be on 48 hour a week by 2009 (the year i qualify)?
does this mean that our income will be halved as we loose all our overtime?

are they counting 'on call' as working?

This is what I wanted to ask Harney. We're gonna be on a 48 hour week by August 2009 (a month after I'm due to finish my internship ). The extra med school places won't start pouring out gradautes until after that date. So there'll be less "Doctor hours" (bceause most doctors work a lot more hours, average about 60 at least) being worked, and no extra doctors to work extra "doctor hours". So my question is - where do the extra hours come from? I'm probably missing something but I didn't hear that answered by Harney.

On call is working, in the sense that you'll be awake the whole time doing drug scripts, putting lines in etc (in Vincents anyway). You should've heard some of the stories some of the doctors were telling us, I thought I had heard them all before - Calvin Coffey, a Gen Surg Reg in the Mater was saying he knew someone who worked 21 hours a day, 5 days in a row, doing full surgical lists. That's madness! (and one reason I won't be doing surgery )

Vainglory wrote:

I pay taxes, and I'm perfectly entitled to ask the Minister for Health a question about the health service if comes to my university.

Vainglory, the only thing shared by "your university" and the university many med students attend is a name - UCD. After that, the Terrace and Belfield are poles apart. The radios' situation is a digrace, and I'm sure you do sterling work for them and all the rest. But when an SU officer comes in and asks questions at a event (that was only held in Belfield because of ET lecture theatre capacity issues) organised by a group that owe very little to the SU, I hope you'll begin to understand our resentment/frustration/call it what you will.

Vorsprung

Zane from MTV2 wrote:

Please say you're taking the piss?

No, I'm not. She's the 1st Minister to seriously attempt to reform the service, actually try to knock consultants' heads together so they work public-only contracts. She's the 1st to increase the number of Med school places, so there'll be 700 odd Irish graduates coming out every year in a few years (it's about 300 now). The new primary care teams are coming on stream soon, so people won't have to go to hospitals for treatment, wasting their own time, and taking up beds. The Health Service has been starved of funds for years, only in the last few years has it got the money it needs. One speaker the other night said the service was malfunded, not underfunded. The money isn't being as spent as efficiently as it should, but this is slowly changing.

I know the A&E situation is a disgrace, I'm down there a couple of days a week. But all the above things that are being done will help in the long term. In the short term, she's not doing well for sure. But I genuinely think the makings of a great health service are out there.

Vainglory

bigjimthefirst wrote:

Vainglory, the only thing shared by "your university" and the university many med students attend is a name - UCD. After that, the Terrace and Belfield are poles apart. The radios' situation is a digrace, and I'm sure you do sterling work for them and all the rest. But when an SU officer comes in and asks questions at a event (that was only held in Belfield because of ET lecture theatre capacity issues) organised by a group that owe very little to the SU, I hope you'll begin to understand our resentment/frustration/call it what you will.

I understand the feeling of alienation ET students have when it comes to the SU. However, no individual officer can be blamed for that. This year I held regular office hours in ET, which were postered for, but only two students ever came to see me during them. Myself and Dave Curran also held a special Earlsfort Terrace Forum one evening, and only three reps turned up to it. It was a productive meeting but of course if more people had attended it might have been better.

I think the core "problem" is that MedSoc do play the role of the SU in the Terrace, and I have huge respect for them and the work that they do. I don't think this is necessarily such a bad thing either. As it's predominantly Belfield based students who run for positions in the SU, it's rare that you'd get a medical student in a sabbatical position. As your course is so specialised and worlds apart different from many courses out here then it's hard for a student (e.g. an arts student like me) coming into a job such as mine to immediately get to grips with the needs of medical students; whereas a 4th year medsoc rep would have experience, knowledge and the trust of the students behind him.

I take on board the frustration at all the bull**** spiel that ET students get during sabbatical elections, and Panda's gripes about broken promises concerning atm machines and copyprint. However, what I would say is that nobody can do everything and although it sounds harsh sometimes you do have to prioritise because there wouldn't be enough hours in the day for a sabbatical officer to do even three quarters of the things in their manifesto. I haven't neglected health sciences students this year but I have chosen to prioritise students who are getting almost the worst deal I have ever come across in this college over service provision (e.g. atm machines). Some people may criticise me for that but that has been the philosophy I have held throughout the year in the job and I don't think it was the wrong one.

With regards to the question, I think this is getting a touch blown out of proportion. I took up about three minutes of a 35 minute question and answer session to challenge the Tánaiste on something that we have all agreed on these boards is a disgraceful situation and one which should be immediately looked at by the Dept. of Health. Everyone has also agreed that when med students did ask the Tánaiste questions, she didn't give any real answers anyway, so it's not as if the three minutes I took up prevented you from finding out something crucially important about your future careers. However, the debate on Tuesday night only reinforced for me what I have always thought; lobbying and chatting to politicians generally is a frustrating experience and they give the answers they want to give, not the answers to the questions you ask. If med students feel really strongly about the issue we debated on Tuesday night then run a campaign on it, or approach the SU and ask them to run one for you. Get organised on it.

Mary Harney will happily answer questions in Theatre M in UCD until the next general election rolls around but believe me it won't make her do anything she doesn't want to, no matter who it might benefit.

pretty*monster

I can't believe you're making such a fuss over this. Jane only asked a question (a bloody good question) ffs! If you didn't want non-med students cluttering the place up and asking questions then I have no idea why you didn't check medsoc membership at the doors.

Chinafoot

pretty*monster wrote:

I can't believe you're making such a fuss over this. Jane only asked a question (a bloody good question) ffs! If you didn't want non-med students cluttering the place up and asking questions then I have no idea why you didn't check medsoc membership at the doors.

Have to agree with this. It was an open event held in Belfield with plenty of posters up around campus. If you only wanted certain people to ask certain questons then you should have restricted attendance.

Also, the issue of the SU in relation to ET and the "isolated" position of medical students isn't really what this thread is about.

Dave!

seems like medsoc wanted as many people there as possible to look good for the minister, but they should just keep their big ig'nint mouths shut and let medical people do the talking!

humbert

That's blunt but I'd say it pretty much sums up their attitude.

Stepherunie

panda100 wrote:

No just medical students but like any society any one can join it if they want so do join next year

Just have to point out that whilst anyone can join medsoc, your posters for elections make it blatently clear that only meds are in fact allowed to run for positions within the society and only meds are allowed to vote. You don't need your medsoc membership card to vote, you need to have your student id and all med students whether they're members of the society are not are eligible to vote according to your posters.


Speaking as a radiography student, someone asked why can't radiographers have there own debate with mary harney about payments for placements etc. Our course has 120 students or so, we're a tiny group, we don't have the kind of influence to get people like that to speak at a debate, god knows we can't even get the societies officer to respond when we send him all the required documentation to have a society. Most of the time i'm told i'm doing nursing when I say i'm a radiography student so what chance have we got?

We're in the school of Medicine and Medical Science, that means for better or worse we're in with meds when it comes to our organisation, our lecturers report back to Prof Powderly and not to a Radiography Head of School as had previously been the case.

Trying to get our voices heard is nigh on impossible, we are the smallest group in the Health Sciences area in UCD by quite a margin, so do I think Jane was right to ask the question? yes. Yes it was a medsoc organised event, yes it was on doctors working hours, but radiographers working hours are being severely ammended at the moment, there is a large amount of backlash against us as apparently we're unwilling to work to reduce the a&e crisis (radiographers work lots of oncall by the way, any scan that needs to be done urgently will be done). You will find very few radiography departments that shut down overnight, the ct scanners will always be on call as will someone for mri which are the two most commonly needed scans for trauma patients. There will be two radiographers up until 9 o clock for both a&e and in house (two radiographers for both sections may I add) and after 9 one will be available. If angio is needed, a radiographer will be on call to do that also. Now that's about 7 radiographers who are on call every night after working a typical day.


Doctors by nature are meant to help people, in fact many med students would say they entered medicine to help. Well I'm sorry from the comments up here it seems some are unwilling to help fellow students and health professionals from being heard, even if it is only for three minutes.

panda100

This has gone totally off on a medics versus the rest of the world tanget so this is obviously a debate for another time. Stepherunie's point about med soc not representing other students in health sciences is another topic,so the rads should bring this up with the med soc comittee next year. As for running union campaigns to get our points across instead of debates with politicans me and big jim the first have already clearly stated while any sort of union campaigns would be totally useless for medics

Humbert agrees with everything I say and retracts everything he has said about arrogant med students.......:D

tintinr35

but of course the health services is only relevant to doctors right?? maybe im wrong but i think that seen as the event was (posters are still up) advertised all over campus then anyone is entitled to go, if it was just for meds it should have been just advertised in the terrace or wherever it is ye hang out!!

The_Minister

Vainglory wrote:

However, what I would say is that nobody can do everything and although it sounds harsh sometimes you do have to prioritise because there wouldn't be enough hours in the day for a sabbatical officer to do even three quarters of the things in their manifesto.

So you knowingly put promises in your manifesto that you plan to break?
I hope I never hear you complaining about Dail politicians being shifty again.

humbert

panda100 wrote:

Humbert agrees with everything I say and retracts everything he has said about arrogant med students.......:D

Yea and panda admits that she's usually wrong and always arrogant but is trying to turn over a new leaf:p

Vainglory

Firespinner wrote:

So you knowingly put promises in your manifesto that you plan to break?
I hope I never hear you complaining about Dail politicians for being shifty again.

NO. Thanks for taking me out of context though.

A manifesto is always aspirational. There are always things that you put in it that although you would like to do, and DO intend to do when you put them in, and WOULD do if time and other factors allowed, you find out when you take office that some of them aren't possible.

See James Carroll's end of year interview in the Observer for more examples of this.

The_Minister

Vainglory wrote:

NO. Thanks for taking me out of context though.

A manifesto is always aspirational. There are always things that you put in it that although you would like to do, and DO intend to do when you put them in, and WOULD do if time and other factors allowed, you find out when you take office that some of them aren't possible.

See James Carroll's end of year interview in the Observer for more examples of this.

Ah. I thought you ment that you put in things that you knew were impossible at the time. Think of it like this though, would you accept that excuse from Fianna Fail and the PDs? They didn't accomplish everything they promised.

Vainglory

Firespinner wrote:

Ah. I thought you ment that you put in things that you knew were impossible at the time. Think of it like this though, would you accept that excuse from Fianna Fail and the PDs? They didn't accomplish everything they promised.

There's a few differences between me and an entire FF/PD coalition government

Firstly, take the last general election. They were already in power so they probably should have known already what was possible and what wasn't.

Also, these people ARE the people who hold the power, whereas I am just a person who tries to encourage people who hold the power to act as we'd all like them to. The decisions are always in their hands but ultimately they are not in mine.

There are also significantly MORE of them, with more combined time on their hands, with more combined resources, to fulfill the promises they make.

They also have 7 years as opposed to 1.

AngelofFire

Vainglory wrote:

you find out when you take office that some of them aren't possible.

See James Carroll's end of year interview in the Observer for more examples of this.

Yeah im getting great use out of the weekly films in the astra hall, not to mention the cheap beer in the bar.

randombassist

Vainglory wrote:

They also have 7 years as opposed to 1.

7 years?! :P

Vorsprung

****ing hell :eek: :eek: this topic has gone from the debate to the world vs medics to cheap beer in the bar!

@ Steph - I'm not gonna go through all the reasons why Med Soc has ended up as a purely med student run organisation, but its partly geographical & partly historical and there's other reasons too. And until the whole of health sciences gets onto one campus I don't see that changing. I think it would be great to have an umbrella body for all the health sci students. Until then, if Rad Soc want a hand with getting in touch with people and Med Soc can help them, I'd personally be more than happy to help out. But I don't think there's been any request like that before (I don't know for sure). And TBH I had never heard of those problems you guys face before this discussion. Please don't take that ignorance personally, it's just a product of not being in the same place.

The last thing I'll say about "the question" - on reflection it wasn't the question I had a problem with; I had a problem with who it was asked by (not her personally because I don't know Jane) but the organisation she represents. Call that petty if you want, but I think Panda and I have covered that.

Vainglory

bigjimthefirst wrote:

The last thing I'll say about "the question" - on reflection it wasn't the question I had a problem with; I had a problem with who it was asked by (not her personally because I don't know Jane) but the organisation she represents. Call that petty if you want, but I think Panda and I have covered that.

Hmm, pretty much the same reason I dislike many Fianna Failers and PD'ers...So I s'pose I'll give you that one

Stepherunie

Rad Soc doesn't exist despite all our best efforts, however when it does believe me we'll do our best to make our case heard.

My problem with how you run medsoc is simple, you allow non meds to join your society, take there two euros yet they are not allowed to run for committee or indeed vote for a committee, now you're not alone, hell physio soc don't even let non physios join there society, or at least they didn't last year but it seems plain wrong to me. In a weird kind of way the very least you can say about the physios stance is they don't give you the impression you can get involved, meds do.

Meds aren't alone in being off campus, rads only moved on campus this year, up until last year 2nd, 3rd and 4th radiographers spent no time on campus they were in the terrace, herbert avenue and hospitals all the time and first years only had a day on campus, yet we as a group don't seem to have taken to the idea of alienation from the rest of UCD, we had our own identity and we kept with that but it didn't stop rads from getting involved with stuff in belfield even if they weren't on campus.


Maybe it's about embracing change, sure you haven't had a great relationship with the SU in the past, but soon enough you'll be on campus and rather than have this resentfulness towards the SU shouldn't you be trying to work together?

At the end of the day meds have a voice, they have a pretty big voice, Radiographers have a damn small one, call me selfish but it's nice to be heard every once in a while over everybody else.

Vorsprung

Stepherunie wrote:

My problem with how you run medsoc is simple, you allow non meds to join your society, take there two euros yet they are not allowed to run for committee or indeed vote for a committee

You could add many if not most societies in UCD to that list to be honest. It's not done intentionally and it's not that we don't allow other courses to vote/run, it's just never been an issue before. That said, I'll get the committee to take that on board and change it for next year.

Stepherunie wrote:

Maybe it's about embracing change, sure you haven't had a great relationship with the SU in the past, but soon enough you'll be on campus and rather than have this resentfulness towards the SU shouldn't you be trying to work together?

Work together to do what? SU don't fulfil their role in ET!! Tbh I'm trying to think of how Med Soc fulfils an SU type role in ET, and I can't think of anything! Why shouldn't we pissed off that the SU doesn't do its job?!

Stepherunie wrote:

At the end of the day meds have a voice, they have a pretty big voice, Radiographers have a damn small one, call me selfish but it's nice to be heard every once in a while over everybody else.

For the last time...I don't have a problem that the question was asked! I've already clarified that. Didn't the president of the Irish Radios Assoc. or something ask a question. Have I even mentioned that?!

Vorsprung

Stepherunie wrote:

Rad Soc doesn't exist despite all our best efforts, however when it does believe me we'll do our best to make our case heard.

Maybe when this is set up you'll hopefully get more answers.

Stepherunie

It's the Irish Institute of Radiography and it was Dr. Mark McEntee I'd say who's also a Radiography Lecturer here in UCD. I acknowledge the fact that you don't have a problem with the question being asked but see the SU IS our voice because that's who we chose to represent us so why challenge the SU for asking the question on our behalf? I don't mean to insult your problems with this but that's how I feel about it.

If the SU aren't doing there job effectively challenge them as a group, you're big enough to have a strong voice in the SU, you feel they don't fufill there job, well make suggestions as to how you feel they could best suit your needs, engineers are in ET too, together you're a large body of students who should be catered for, that goes without question, it's one way to look at it.
You have class reps on the student council and the health sciences is a med is he not? Get them to ensure the SU you look after your needs.

Vorsprung

Stepherunie wrote:

It's the Irish Institute of Radiography and it was Dr. Mark McEntee I'd say who's also a Radiography Lecturer here in UCD. I acknowledge the fact that you don't have a problem with the question being asked but see the SU IS our voice because that's who we chose to represent us so why challenge the SU for asking the question on our behalf? I don't mean to insult your problems with this but that's how I feel about it.

Fair enough.

Stepherunie wrote:

If the SU aren't doing there job effectively challenge them as a group, you're big enough to have a strong voice in the SU, you feel they don't fufill there job, well make suggestions as to how you feel they could best suit your needs, engineers are in ET too, together you're a large body of students who should be catered for, that goes without question, it's one way to look at it.

If it was that simple it would have been done long ago Steph. Meds are there all the time though, engineers use both Belfield and ET. And most of them have left I think.

Stepherunie wrote:

You have class reps on the student council and the health sciences is a med is he not? Get them to ensure the SU you look after your needs.

Colm Byrne - he's done great work. Don't know if he tried he get hot food, water fountain etc into ET. My class (3rd Med) doesn't have a council rep, in fact clinical years usually don't, just because hospitals take up the time.

Was just looking at the UCDSU site to see if our class rep was there (says we don't) they don't even have the right names for the years, there's no Foundation Med up there. And I'm pretty sure they have an SU rep. Seems indifference can work both ways :rolleyes: