Pros/Cons of Your Medical School?

wayhey

Hi everyone I've seen the megamerge, but would it be possible to leave this here? I have to make up my mind on my CAO this weekend and I've all 5 medical schools down. To be honest it's the order I'm worried about. Maybe students/ ex-students could help me out here? To be honest most prospecti waffle on and really try to sell the college but I want the truth- going to be a good few long years (if I'm lucky)

Maybe if I outline my impressions? I've been to all Open Days and have copies of the prospecti.

Trinity: I liked this university and I know some people going there from my town who say it's really great, the people are nice, etc. The location is good too. However, I heard that they teach Medicine in "blocks", eg. all biochem, all anatomy, as opposed to systems-based teaching, e.g. looking at the circulatory system's biochem, physiology. Two concerns about this: one, if there's a particular aspect of Med I don't really like it'll drag on for a while, two, studying at end of year and tying it all together yourself would be nightmarish.

RCSI: I was prepared not to like RCSI. I thought that hanging out with people who work in health the whole time would be horrible. I was really wrong and knew that in a few hours of being there. Lovely college, I know it's no campus but that doesn't really bother me too much. I love the way notes are online and teaching is systems-based. I like it and it's a possible number 1. They also said they send you round the country to different hospitals in later years.. does this happen everywhere? Staff seemed nice, diversity of the place seems really cool... didn't really like how they were so against PreMed though because my Chem's a little weak after my wonderful teacher.

Galway: My second possible number one. My brother lives there so I've been there a good few times and nights out are great Also cheaper than Dublin and really easy to get around. Hospital's close to the Uni, that's great. One thing that's putting me off is that it's in the West. Is that stupid? Just figured maybe you'd see more in Dublin hospitals... Loved the uni and the city though. So long as my parents give up on the idea of me living with my brother :P I've heard they encourage PreMed, to adjust to college. Like that attitude I have to say, even if I might skip it.

UCD: I didn't really like UCD. Really big campus but that didn't put me off (in fact if RCSI was a bit bigger that'd be great, I love meeting loads of people). I just didn't like the way it took so long getting a bus in and out etc., although it was chaos on the two Open Days I'd been at so maybe that's a poor reputation. I don't mind if I get my course here and it's size is good in that there'll be loads of different people to meet and loads of active clubs and socs

UCC: Nice grounds, a nice college (although I wasn't too happy that the Medical buildings were away from the main campus. Maybe that's a good thing though? Or is the library far away from it? No know one in UCC from round here, it's not a common choice. Again, like UCD I'd still be delighted to get Medicine here but I think it's my last choice. The professor giving the talk (a middle-aged to elderly woman with greyish hair, a paeds expert I think in case anyone knows her?) was so friendly. Answered loads of questions at the end, stuck around- staff of RCSI nice?


I haven't made my mind up at all, maybe I'd have more luck in individual college forums? Anyway, any input at all is really appreciated and don't be afraid to tell me I'm compltely wrong or right about something: I need the truth on this!

EDIT: Don't be afraid to mention UK colleges, I might be repeating! They take repeats, right?

thesituation51

Hi! I can only speak about UCD! I've just wrapped up my medical degree, and on the whole, my experience was fabulous. I did the six year course, so started off with pre-med, which is one of the HUGE advantages that I feel UCD has over other universities. Some people complain that you don't learn that much, but same as everything else, you get out of it what you put in, and while some of the stuff is admittedly a bit irrelevant, the majority of it has come in useful somewhere down the line (even from the simple angle of improving your general scientific knowledge!). It also gives you a chance to wind down a little after an insanely intense LC year. Several of my classmates who skipped premed regretted it, because although they had 2 and 1/2 months between LC and college, they still had the work-your-ass-off mentality, and so wasted a lot of energy and time studying like mad yokes for a year which should be about finding your feet, and enjoying college life - the later years hardly even feel like college, so you need to make the most of pre (or first!) med. Also, the class size is really good - we had about 110 in our year in pre-med, which went up to around 180 with international, graduate and LC students in first med. We all got to know each other really well in pre-med, and the medical society organise tonnes of events, so you meet people from others years pretty quickly too. So from a social aspect, medicine in UCD could not be bettered.

UCD as a university is brilliant - and with the new student centre facilities opening in 2011, it'll be even better. The clubs and societies are very friendly, and until you get up to 3rd med, you've enough free time to participate a good bit in them. Even though the campus is very big, there is only one main thoroughfare (from the sports centre down to the Quinn School), so I often ran into school and club/society friends!

teaching-wise, we have some amazing lecturers. That's not to say the other unis don't as well, but speaking from personal experience, some of them are so dedicated, patient and helpful, i can't imagine they could be bettered elsewhere. The hospitals to which ucd is attached (Vincent's and the Mater), are really really good for teaching, and as I'm sure you know, they're pretty damn good hospitals. My experience in UCD was amazing, and i'd always encourage anyone to go there for medicine. My class as a whole were extremely happy with our course.

Hope the LC went well!

etymon

tee hee @ 'prospecti'
very grammatically correct!

locum-motion

etymon wrote: »

tee hee @ 'prospecti'
very grammatically correct!

Actually, I'm not sure that it is. 'Octopus' for example comes from Greek, whereas the 'i' plural thing comes from Latin, so the correct plural of Octopus is either 'Octopus', 'Octopuses' or perhaps even 'Octopodes', but is definitely not 'Octopi'.
If 'Prospectus' comes from Latin, it would become 'Prospecti'. If it comes from Greek, it's not.

etymon

locum-motion wrote: »

Actually, I'm not sure that it is. 'Octopus' for example comes from Greek, whereas the 'i' plural thing comes from Latin, so the correct plural of Octopus is either 'Octopus', 'Octopuses' or perhaps even 'Octopodes', but is definitely not 'Octopi'.
If 'Prospectus' comes from Latin, it would become 'Prospecti'. If it comes from Greek, it's not.

hmmm well I don't know if it's correct or not (a quick Google would seem to say yes) but it's one of those weird words that just sounds wrong, even if it's right. Wouldn't say it in public anyway. Kind of like 'insurance premia'. Only Anne Doyle gets away with that sort of malarkey!

OP my vote is for RCSI

tallaght01

I'd recommend TCD, though I don't have first hand experience of it. Irish docs seem to really rate their grads, and that might just matter when there's 2 of you competing for every intern post in a few years. Also, I believe they haven't experimented/dicked around with the syllabus, in that they're teaching a proper full medical course. Again, that's just what other docs have told me, I've no connection with TCD.

Don't worry about systems based teaching. I've plenty of experience with both types, and it's mostly just waffle. The majority of people manage both fine.

TCD is also very highly regarded overseas, where I think most grads will need to go at some stage after they graduate.

Pure opinion, though.

ORLY?

tallaght01 wrote: »

Irish docs seem to really rate their grads, and that might just matter when there's 2 of you competing for every intern post in a few years. Also, I believe they haven't experimented/dicked around with the syllabus, in that they're teaching a proper full medical course.

On the intern thing, there's not going to be any preference given to any Unis from this year on. Everything is going to operate from a centralised system where a student's ranking within their class is all that will matter.

Also, if TCD is running a full proper medical course, what are the others doing?

Also, hold back on the hyperbole over intern places. There'll be two grads competing for every place? How many EU places in medicine are there in Ireland? There are 500 odd, something like 520 intern places I think, as of now. Where did you get this ratio from?

Bazmedic

I've just finished third med in TCD. Its true that the course is taught in blocks for the first two years, but this year all our teaching was based on systems, ie. the pathology, pharmacology and microbiology of the cardiovascular system, all at once, then moving on to the respiratory system, etc. I think the idea is to get a basic knowledge of the systems first before hitting the pathology, where everything kinda knits together. Then we had month long rotations in between the teaching.

As for where the college is, midway through 2nd year all our lectures were moved to St. James's Hospital, where all of our lectures now take place, which is a shame because the campus is a nice place to be. Although it makes sense as all of our clinical lecturers are based either there or in Tallaght.

Exams are indeed nightmarish, but I would think that it's the same in any medicine course, although that's pure speculation on my part.
Personally, I am really enjoying the course and would recommend Trinity.
Hope that helps!!

thesituation51

tallaght01 wrote: »

I'd recommend TCD, though I don't have first hand experience of it. Irish docs seem to really rate their grads, and that might just matter when there's 2 of you competing for every intern post in a few years. Also, I believe they haven't experimented/dicked around with the syllabus, in that they're teaching a proper full medical course. Again, that's just what other docs have told me, I've no connection with TCD.

Don't worry about systems based teaching. I've plenty of experience with both types, and it's mostly just waffle. The majority of people manage both fine.

TCD is also very highly regarded overseas, where I think most grads will need to go at some stage after they graduate.

Pure opinion, though.

Experminented/dicked around? I'm not quite sure what they means, there's obviously a limit to how much 'dicking around' can be done with a medical course, given that we need to all come out of it with a grounding in the same subjects? and i know, for example, that UCD are regarded very highly in the teaching they get in obstetrics and gynaecology, while rcsi are well known for their great surgery and psychiatry teaching. Just cos it's taught differently in different colleges doesnt mean that a proper, full medical course isn't being taught! I'm friends with people from all the medical schools in the country, and have studied with them, and i'm pretty sure everyone comes out with, basically, the same knowledge!

ragalag

I'm another TCDer..just finished first med and i abolutely LOVE IT!!:D
I actually cannot imagine being in any other university doing any other course...
Just thought another thing you should be aware of when picking colleges is whether they have a foundation year or not.

In trinity it's 5 yrs - no foundation yr..just something else to be aware of..I suppose it all depends on YOUR personal opinions/ideas on the matter!!

Personally I felt medical school was long enough without adding an extra year on so I put all the 5 yr courses first on my CAO..

Also..not to be putting negative vibes out about pre-med years..but I recently heard of a friend in NUIG who did a pre-med yr there...then went into 1st med this year..and found it too difficult by comparison and has since proceeded to drop out and do teaching or some such course instead...she said she had no life in medicine..but maybe that had nothing to do with the pre-med..obviously medicine wasn't for her...sadly she wasted 2 yrs instead of 1 though...:(

ORLY?

OP, since you were originally talking about undergrad med I thought I'd not bother mentioning UL but since you've now been talking about maybe doing a different degree then the graduate route I'll give my 2c. Hopefully, you get what you want this time around but if you do the grad route here goes..

I don't know if one can easily list pros and cons because it's really impossible to judge unless one has done two different medical degrees in two different places so I'll just describe some of my UL experience.

The course is very very intense, I expected it to be extremely intense, but have still been caught out. There are days when I have driven into college and not really been fit to be driving on the road because I've been up studying so much, and this is well before the exam period.

It's been physically and mentally exhausting. I'm stretched EVERY SINGLE week to get what I want done regarding the current case, never mind studying previous stuff. We all just finished our exams three weeks ago, then had 2 weeks of a special study module to complete (basically shadowing) then a report to write on it due for tomorrow, 2nd July, then we start back on the 3rd of August. Non stop.

You may or may not know that UL is done through PBL, so we have a case presented on Monday, reported on Thursday and concluded on the following Monday. Outside of all the objectives set out in PBL (the physiology, pathology, epidemiology, pharmacology, microbiology etc) that relate to the current case, there are anatomy mini-cases to be worked through. The anatomy cases alone could take up to two solid days, and PBL the rest of the week, but then there is the little matter of our lectures, anatomy tutorials and clinical skills sessions.

Then there is the matter of exams, the ones we just finished were on everything that's been covered over the last 2 years and there are no past papers or anything that one would be used to from other degrees and there's no limit to the scope of the exams. Also, it's inevitable that things will appear in the exams that you don't have a clue about, such is the scope. Obviously, they are quite passable as long as the work is put in but it's highly unlikely you'll be comfortable with everything in them. This is something that is hard to get used to as it's not the way in other college courses.

So do I think it's good? The only evidence I can give is that since I started, I have never, not for 5 minutes, regretted choosing to start the course. I consider myself to be fairly intelligent:D, but before I started I never would have believed it was possible to learn and retain what I've learned in the last two years but I've done it and I'm looking forward to August, so things are good.

tallaght01

ORLY? wrote: »

On the intern thing, there's not going to be any preference given to any Unis from this year on. Everything is going to operate from a centralised system where a student's ranking within their class is all that will matter.

Also, if TCD is running a full proper medical course, what are the others doing?

Also, hold back on the hyperbole over intern places. There'll be two grads competing for every place? How many EU places in medicine are there in Ireland? There are 500 odd, something like 520 intern places I think, as of now. Where did you get this ratio from?

I think the competition is going to be terrible for intern places in a few years. I think most people know this, and the competition for reg/consultant places is going to be a lot worse. And you won't even be able to all head out to Oz, as they're a few years ahead of Ireland in making their juniors less powerful, and their newest grads are starting to feel the pinch for jobs, and it's about to get a lot worse. I've now got final year med students in oz worrying about getting jobs that aren't in the middle of nowhere.

Plus there's LOADS of dicking around that can be done with the med curriculum. A student told me recently that she'd done pretty much no dissection, and had not had a single class on the anatomy of the arm!!!! There's no hard and fast rules about the minutiae of what gets taught.

No names and all that jizm, but we all know there's now medical degrees, and there's medical degrees. Or at least a lot of us feel that way. Other would disagree, though,a nd the OP needs to talk to as many people as possible (try to talk to docs who aren't affiliated with the unis, and who have contact with students, as they'll give you a good opinion).

But despite hat I hear, I can't help feel things maybe won't be as bad as predicted (local TD told my dad that we're gonna see "widespread medical unemployment" in a few years) because the EWTD will open up the number of places.

Plus there seems to be very few docs to fill this year's posts.

Only worry is that various types of practitioners will start taking up the roles of juniors (as that consultant rote in the irish times yesterday, our juniors are now at the stage where ANPs can do the job as well as them), which will reduce jobs, even though junior docs should be cheaper. But once these positions get created, you'll be in a situation like the UK where it's hard to get rid of them.

Sorry, OP, don't wanna derail your thread. I'd stick by my original post....go for somewhere that does a pretty traditional teaching style (I'm not stuck in the past, but that style has been producing very good docs for years, and is tried and tested), plus there's a lot of chatter between docs (I even hear it overseas) about Irish med schools, and TCD seems to be the one where the students seem to have kept their quality.

But if you don't believe that (and the above is only opinion) then just go wherever you want to live. That's what I would have always advised a few years ago, when there was very little difference between the med schools.

Good luck whatever you do.

ORLY?

tallaght01 wrote: »

I think the competition is going to be terrible for intern places in a few years. I think most people know this, and the competition for reg/consultant places is going to be a lot worse.

Whatever about the competition for Reg/Consultant places I'd like to know HOW people KNOW that there will be such fierce competition for intern places. I've heard it again and again but see no real evidence for it. The increases in the number of EU places at medschool are nearing their end and as far as I'm aware there hasn't been any announcement of cuts to intern places.

tallaght01

ORLY? wrote: »

Whatever about the competition for Reg/Consultant places I'd like to know HOW people KNOW that there will be such fierce competition for intern places. I've heard it again and again but see no real evidence for it. The increases in the number of EU places at medschool are nearing their end and as far as I'm aware there hasn't been any announcement of cuts to intern places.

Don't quote me on this, but most of the hospitals seem to be under the impression that the EWTD will mean we need loads more interns, and the med schools are producing loads of interns to fill these roles. But the HSE haven't been taking about increasing intern numbers at all, or very little.

This leaves everyone except the HSE confused about how they're going to cover the service.

The TD my dad spoke to says there's just going to be lots more consultants working overnight etc.

In any other sector you'd say it would be so ridiculous that it's couldn't be done. But you just never know with health.

wayhey

I put Trinity, RCSI, Galway, UCD and Cork, in that order. Realistically if I'm getting Medicine this year I think it'll be Galway, RCSI if I'm lucky.

Thanks to all of you for your help. Now to focus on getting a job for the summer