Biomedical Science?

curious guy

You can also branch into other areas of science and the situation maybe diff in a few years I am only a student so maybe worthwhile ringin the collage or a hospital before writing it off. Once you get in to a hospital which you probably will at some stage and you are a good worker you would be okay tho.

sunnyjim

celtic723 wrote: »

the lack of jobs in that sector is a huge turn off. don't think i'll opt for this course now.

What sectors do have any jobs right now?

celtic723

sunnyjim wrote: »

What sectors do have any jobs right now?

my other choice is general science so tbh i think it's safe to say that there is definately jobs in that sector.

Tree

You do realise you're not tied to jobs in hospitals if you do the biomed degree, you can work in any lab in industry or the healthcare labs, it's a science degree with a heavy emphasis on practical skills.

Having been to both university and to CIT and DIT, i can honestly say you should go to an IT for practical skills, you won't learn in them in uni, and they're pretty damned useful for finding jobs.

Laa

:)hi, i am a first year student of biomedical science in DIT, and i was just wondering about the hospital placement in third year. Is your placement givin to you or can you chose a hospital not in dublin for your placement . Have you heard of students doin it down the country or anything??
would really like to know the months aswell.

:):confused:

CatK

Is this course 5 years? I'm interested in doing it, but the prospectus I downloaded said 4 years...

Tree

The old course was five years including the years placement. I think the new one is four years, excluding the years placement (that you'll have to do anyway)

Gazza22

It was reviewed two years ago and condensed. The structure of the course was changed in some areas.

It's 4 years now including the placement which happens in third year.

checki-xx

anyone starting this course in september??

Ronanc1

anyone starting this course in september??

Me!! look forward to meeting yah checki

checki-xx

Ronanc1 wrote: »

Me!! look forward to meeting yah checki

look forward to meeting ye 2!! :):rolleyes:

Pink Feather

Hey i'm another 6th yr student and i nnotice that you list de colleges that allow to join those kind of organisations when you get a biomed degree from DIT?
Does that mean NUIM Biological and biomedical science is pretty much no good if you want to work in hospital lab?
What exactly would you be doing in a hospital as a biomed grad? Like what work? I know testing body fluids and all but do you get to help with diagnostics, investigte diseases and all that?
And what about the course? do you learn about all medical stuff? the body and diseses and all medical stuff?
Is maths in the course really that difficult? Cause i really suck at maths!!

DannyKing

Hi, I've just read through all the posts here. And there are some great ones. Very helpfull. Thanks. I'm 23 and have my CAO mature application in. My main course choices are in Galway but will prob be changing my mind. This course looks great. Anyway, I just wanted to say that no, this course will not restrict you to Hospital work/careers. For the past 4 years I have been living in Galway city and for the past 3 working in a medical device factory. With which Galway has the highest concentration of in the whole of Ireland. Well, I was working in the R&D department. Mainly with vascular devices but there are very many different areas. I worked very closely with engineers and technicians and customers as it was R&D. I just wanted to say that the very vast majority of those employees had biomed degrees, some only had diploma's such as physics and instrumentology. Please dont restrict yourself to the one industry. My hope after completion of my degree is to find employment in the research and development department of a biomed factory. Its a fabulous industry with loads to learn, lots of advancment possibilities, plenty of travel(including abroad).
Thats all really. I wont name any companies but just search for medical factory in galway for an idea of the type of companies that are out there.
Hope this post helps somebody.
So Long.

anto3473

Pink Feather wrote: »

Hey i'm another 6th yr student and i nnotice that you list de colleges that allow to join those kind of organisations when you get a biomed degree from DIT?
Does that mean NUIM Biological and biomedical science is pretty much no good if you want to work in hospital lab?
What exactly would you be doing in a hospital as a biomed grad? Like what work? I know testing body fluids and all but do you get to help with diagnostics, investigte diseases and all that?
And what about the course? do you learn about all medical stuff? the body and diseses and all medical stuff?
Is maths in the course really that difficult? Cause i really suck at maths!!

Hi, im a 4th year just finishing the course and i know it might be a bit late since the CAO might be filled in allready, but no the degree in NUIM will not qualify you to work as a medical scientist. As regards maths, nobody is good at every subject and I dident have leaving cert chemistry going in which made things in 1st year difficult to say the least but i got through it, maths would be far less of a stumbling block. The maths are at about the same level of difficulty as pass leaving certificate, you do most of them on a computer allthough there is a written exam. its all statistics. As regards what you will do in a hospital, Biomed splits into 5 feilds; Haematology (study of red and white blood cell disorders), Microbiology (identifying the causes of infection and finding out which antibiotics doctors will use), clinical chemistry (measure various chemicals, drugs, enzymes, hormones in blood and other body fluids), Blood transfusion (finding compatable blood products for patients(theyres way more to it than the ABO system)) and cell pathology which is all about doing stuff with tissue samples to diagnose various types of cancer and other conditions.

you do all 5 subjects for the 1st 3 years then pick a major(2/3 of final degree mark) and a minor (the other 1/3 roughly)

you will learn almost everything there is to know about the body from a molecule >protein>cell>organ>systemic level and how diseases act at each of these levels. You will be amazed when you look back at all you've covered in 4 years. as regards jobs, yeah there are some out there but they're not well advertised, that's why the placement is such a good idea, you hear about most of these jobs by word of mouth, so get out there and get to know people in the hospitals.

also i cant remember who it was but a 1st from the course asked earlier in the thread: The 3rd year clinical placement is from the first week of September to the week of St Patrick's day in the new course (25 weeks) 5 weeks are spent in each of the 5 labs except blood transfusion (4 weeks in hospital, last week at the national blood centre). then back to college for semester 2 which was only 8 weeks long instead of the normal 15 but you still do 3 full modules (half the normal amount for a full semester, but still half the time to study so same thing really) The subjects are Immunology, Biochemistry, and Biological Basis of Disease (Sort of a mad mix of stuff, mostly pathology and molecular biology, Its thought by Fergus Ryan and a retired GP Fiona Donnely, Really interesting stuff but its fairly random topics covered with no real structure)
we were initially given a choice of hospitals (numbering 1,2,3) but since everyone wanted the same ones our names were picked out of a hat

RML

Heya!

well umm im considering doing Biomedical science in DIT next year..just wondering if there are any jobs in that sector atm?

sarahr123

Hi, i'm currently in 5th year in secondary school, i'm doing biology and chemistry for my leaving cert. I'm really interested in doing biomedical science as a course. but school is getting quite hard now and i'm struggling in honours maths and i'm considering dropping to ordinary level. But do i need honours maths to do this course? I'm also trying to choose between UCC or DIT? I've looked into both colleges but am still unsure about which one to go to. Would anyone be able to give me some feedback regarding either of this topics?

Thanks,
Sarah

anto3473

Biology and Chemistry are good subjects to have for the course, i didn't have leaving cert chemistry and it made things hard but do-able.

Honours maths is not a requirement. I dropped down to pass on the day of the leaving cert exams (not the most advisable thing to do but I was grand). The maths in the course is not that hard, a decent pass standard at leaving cert is fine.

As regards which college to chose the course and the quality of education in both UCC and DIT is about the same. There is really no difference when it comes to looking for jobs afterwords both degrees are accepted by employers in the same regard.

Which college you go to is completely up to you; both colleges have their pro's and cons, for instance rent is more expensive than Dublin, but most of the country's hospitals (and jobs) are in the Dublin area so making connections here might be easier - The med lab community in Ireland is fairly small and a lot of us know each other.


My advice is find out about what it's like to work in a hospital lab first to see if the course is right for you.

Look up your local hospital lab and find out from the lab manager if anyone could show you around the lab and explain more about the course some day. (This person will probably be a 3rd year med lab student) Ask nicely, people who work in hospital labs are very busy people.

Best of luck!

Gitiana

Hi everyone!

Just wondering if anyone has any updates on the biomedical courses/job opportunities?
Ive been looking into all three-CIT/UCC, DIT and GMIT and I cant decide which is "better". Is it really a matter of just choosing cork/Dublin etc or does one course have an advantage over the other?? Also, does anyone know which college actually awards the CIT/UCC course?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, CAO deadline is looming! :O

kevohmsford

From my understanding if you want to work as a Medical Scientist the course in DIT is the one to do. A lot of graduates from this course get jobs in Canada.

xLisaBx

I'm from Kerry, so I put Cork 1st just because it's the closest to home. Then Dublin, as it's the 2nd closest and finally Galway as it's the furthest away. The courses are all practically the same so I'm not bothered about what offer I get

xLisaBx

I'm from Kerry, so I put Cork 1st just because it's the closest to home. Then Dublin, as it's the 2nd closest and finally Galway as it's the furthest away. The courses are all practically the same so I'm not bothered about what offer I get