questions on unsw medicine!!! (2 Viewers)

[pink668]

hi, i recently offered a place at unsw for medicine. i have a lot of questions that i want to ask you guys... (sorry!)

1. has anyone enrolled yet? i've enrolled but not sure i've done it right, i enrolled in fmac1501 and fmac1503... is that what you enrolled in? (paranoia is beginning to seep in, not sure if i did right because i did it in 40 degree room and head was spinning around) however, they are only lectures, what about tutorials and labwork that i hear people mention so much about?
about those two courses above, what are they about?
what kind of materials will need, particularly those exercise books? should i get those 5 subject a4 books, any other recommendations?

2. is the work really hard and challenging? i remember before applying for medicine,i was told that it would be quite difficult and challenging. however, the people were only referring to graduating and working as Gp etc. so, is the uni work really hard?

3. can you guys tell me a bit about the exams? i'm totally clueless on this one... do we write essays, do prac experiments or written exams? and is it really hard to get a pass?

4. my mother told me about med students staying up til 3 studying, is that before exams, general studying or doing homework? is there a really big workload?
hypothetical situation: if we are really organised and study regularly, is there still the need to pull all- nighters (like the situation above... you see, my brain begins to shut down after 1am...) are the concepts taught really hard to grasp?

5. what is uni life for med students like? do you still get to have a 'life' or does everything centralise around 'studying'? is it still possible to have a part- time job or is that just too stressful?

6. textbooks. will the lecturers till us which textbooks to purchase in first week or should we just buy everything on the prescribed list?

thank you for reading and any advice given!

 

[KFunk]

1. For semester 1 you should be enrolled in 'foundations' and 'beginnings growth & development' (BGD). The first course, foundations, is an introductory course designed to get you used to the basic concepts in medicine and the workload - you don't have to stress about it because you can't really fail foundations (unless, I suppose, you don't actually attend the course). Foundations uses the scenario of stomach pain and looks at Helicobacter pylori infection (the species which Australians Warren and Marshall linked to stomach ulcers, leading to the award of a nobel prize). In BGD we'll be looking at paediatrics and possibly the endocrine system (though I'm not certain).


2. The work isn't very challenging in the intellectual sense. However, the work load is fairly high, and there's a lot to remember. I manage to get by with relatively little study and a week long blitz before each exam. If you were to do a solid hour of work each night then you should be able to pass the exams without much trouble. However, this will difer from person to person, so use foundations to work out what level of work you need to put in. Occaisionally ideas crop up which are difficult if you haven't come across them before, e.g. treating electrical signals in the heart as vectors, but they don't seem to be too frequent during phase 1.


3. Our exams (generally) consist of 4 short answer questions, each of which will have 2 - 3 parts, 15 multiple choice questions on lecture material and 15 multiple choice questions on prac material. An example of part of a short answer question is:

Discuss the validity of the following statement, giving reasons as to why you agree or disaree with it and using appropriate examples to illustrate your answer. "Myocardial infarction usually affects the right ventricle, resulting from progressive enlargment of an atheromatous plaque, most often in the right coronary artery."

A question like that isn't too difficult to answer once you've completed a course which deals with it quite extensively.


4. It depends on the person. Some people are crazy studiers, some do next to nothing, and some fall in between. I probably fall towards the middle of the spectrum on the 'less study' side. I definately put in a lot of hours in the week leading up to the exam, but otherwise I take things fairly easy. So far this has landed me with a credit average, which is all you need to do a MedSci(hons) year, but I'll definately be stepping up the level of work I do this year. Also: no, the concepts are not that hard to grasp. If you've performed at the kind of level needed for entry into the course then you shouldn't find it difficult to understand the material (it's nothing like highly abstract mathematics, for example).


5. I find med people at UNSW to be very social. Sure, everyone has an inner nerd somewhere and will make time to study but plenty of people hang out on the library lawn, throw parties and what not. Because you spend so much time with the people in the med course (versus other faculties where you're lucky to share 2 or 3 lectures with someone) you get to know people fairly well. Medsoc organises a lot of social events e.g. medcamp, which I would recommend. In any case, don't worry, if you want a social life then you can have one.

Part time jobs can be difficult to hold down given that our time tables generally keep us at uni (in phase one) from 9-3 (or 9-5) most days. Sometimes they even pull 8am lectures on us, which are pretty deadly. If you work in the evening or on the weekends then that's doable, but it's unlikely that you'll be able to work during the day on weekdays.


6. As to textbooks, try and look at books in the library before you buy them (i.e. try before you buy). A lot of the prescribed books are quite good, e.g. Mims 'Medical Microbiology', Parham 'The immune system', Rang & Dale 'Pharmacology' and 'Gray's Anatomy for Students' (this is in my opinion, of course). However, some books on the prescribed list aren't always to peoples liking. Given that they're a big investment you should check out your different options before purchasing. It might also help to talk the the second years about which textbooks work for them (the above four are probably my favourites thus far).


... phew, long post. I hope that stuff helps. All the best - KFunk.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

Kfunk: no Robbins? i thought even UNSW students use Robbins

conflict of interest: if i could get my robbins signed id do it <3

 

[KFunk]

Fair call, we do actually use robbins, and it's another textbook that I quite like. However, at home I have a fairly old edition (third edition) and so I don't use it as much. When I need the path knowledge I usually just borrow a more recent one from the 1 hour loan section of the library. All up I agree with you, definately a quality book.

 

[KFunk]

1. If you meant the 'myUNSW' timetable ---> the medicine timetable for phase 1 is variable and, as such, you don't get a 'static' myUNSW timetable. You need to login to emed if you want to view your timetable.

If you meant the emed timetable ---> planning for the med timetable often continues until a couple weeks prior to the start of a given course (that, or the process of posting timetables itself generally takes up till then). In any case, you'll learn not to expect a prompt posting of a definite emed timetable. However, you can often get access to a module planner (on the timetable page, in the navigator bar, titled "AE-B planner PDF") which has a condensed draft timetable for all colleges. The times and dates on this planner are usually the same as the actual timetables which get posted, bar a couple minor rearrangements. Of course, if you don't know your college yet (for example, I am in college C) then the planner won't give you a definite idea... but at least you can get an approximation.

2. You should get some kind of package from the med faculty after accepting the offer (I can't remember how long it takes to arrive). It should have things like general information, immunisation details, contacts, O-week info, forms for the face-to-face booklet (which you will learn about when you get the package) and so forth.

3. No (in a statistical sense).


EDIT: Up where I wrote "AE-B planner PDF" it should be something like "Foundations PDF" since we don't start taking the same courses until the second half of semester 1, after you 1^st years have sat through foundations.

 

[queenie]

ahhhh! no no im confused as well! when i was doing my timetable, i could only add foundations, there was no begginnings of growth and development

man this is sooo confusing

 

[queenie]

lol yup, alrite, its all good now ive enrolled in both... we still dont have a timetable though dammit.. ahh wellz

 

[pink668]

hey, are you guys going to go to the med camp?

do we have to get there by ourselves or will there will be a bus arranged for us?

 

[KFunk]

There will be buses to take you there.

 

[pink668]

entry into a party or something...

 

[KFunk]

Im curious, what goes on at med camp? Also, I personally don't want to do it, but to be a medical examiner, such as diagnosing the death of someone, is a medicine/surgery degree required to do this job?

It's basically just a couple days of social activities aimed at helping people to get to know one another - some of it is structured, some is unstructured. When you talk about a medical examiner I assume you're talking about the kind of person you see on a show like CSI --> that kind of work, to the best of my knowledge, is the realm of a forensic pathologist. You would need a medical degree to become one since it's a medical specialty. Here's a link to a brief brochure on forensic pathology from the RCPA: http://www.rcpa.edu.au/applications/DocumentLibraryManager2/upload/RCPA Careers DL Forensic .pdf

 

[KFunk]

I'm pretty sure that forensic pathologists are the ones who examine 'the body in the morgue and record the cause of death'. Looking at the pamphlet I gave you a link to above, it says:

"A forensic pathologist performs autopsy examinations to both the external and internal body organs to discover cause of death."

However, I'm not so sure about the organ removal question. The person removing organs in order that they might be donated is probably a specialist surgeon of some form. However, their job would not be to inspect the organs for cause of death (that's the job of the forensic pathologist) - they would just be there to remove them. Of course, I'm only a second year med student and there may be more flexibility in each of the roles than I am aware of.

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

the surgeon does it..
the surgeon would order tests to be done on the blood and the organs.. so bloods and tissue samples then get sent to the pathology labs.. to be reviewed..

a surgeon should be trained in basic pathology.. *duh*.. so they can spot any major macroscopic problems

usually a donor is reviewed very heavily before donation..

but i dun completely know.. im only a fourth year medical student

 

[pink668]

hey, when the med timetables are up for 1st years, can you guys tell me so... like post a message that they are up... pretty please- thanks...
every time i go to myunsw for class timetables, all it says is 'tba' and the emed website doesnt work for me... thanks!

 

[+Po1ntDeXt3r+]

Impression:
how's one introduced to death?
Slowly.. lots of text and readings and talking about mortality with peers.. well at my uni anyways.. then the cadavars.. where u touch them and feel them

when do you begin surgical procedures while as a student, if any?

in UMelb they did mock appendictomies on cadavars in yr 1... in Adelaide we do practise in certain electives in yr 1-3 on cadavars to learn to suture (stitches) and Monash is the same..
UNSW I have no idea..

then in yr 4-6 u watch and assist in real ones

hope that helps..

 

[lala2]

No way--it's more like 18 hours/week. So is Melbourne, Monash and most other unis. It's all self-directed learning.

 

[aussiechica7]

www.medstudentsonline.com

 

[Explain]

Hi,

I have a few quick questions about first year clinical teaching at hospitals.

1. When do you go to the hospitals and for how long?

2. Do you have to go to university on these days and, if so, are there any transport issues affecting the Western Sydney hospitals (obviously the answer to this question will be affected by the answer to 1)?

3. What sorts of things do you do at the hospital?


Thanks for your help.

 

[KFunk]

Hi,

I have a few quick questions about first year clinical teaching at hospitals.

1. When do you go to the hospitals and for how long?

2. Do you have to go to university on these days and, if so, are there any transport issues affecting the Western Sydney hospitals (obviously the answer to this question will be affected by the answer to 1)?

3. What sorts of things do you do at the hospital?


Thanks for your help.

(1) During phase 1 you spend 2 hours at a teaching hospital every fortnight. These sessions tend to be held in the afternoon and they alternate (weekly) with communications/clinical skills (CCS) sessions which are held at a university owned building near UNSW. Mypersonal schedule is ussually as follows: a clinical session from 1-3 (or 3-5) at prince of wales on wednesday of week A, and then a CCS session from 2-5 on wednesday of week B.

(2) On these days you will often have lectures on in the morning, but they generally won't schedule things like pracs or tutorials in between the lectures and the clinical sessions to allow for travel time. Given that I'm at prince of wales (next door to UNSW) I'm not really in touch with travel issues asssociated with getting out to western sydney and the like. Nonetheless, I'm sure that the university accounts for such issues when creating the medicine timetable. In any case, if things became too difficult you could always listen to lectures online.

(3) Your clinical sessions basically consist of learning about and practicing basic clinical examination. In general you start with patient histories and learning how to talk patients, and then progress to physical examination (always with consent, of course). The kind of history/physical examination depends on what you are studying at the time. For example, in Beginnings, Growth and Development A while studying things like pregnancy you will learn to take a menstrual history, whereas during Society and Health A when you study the respiratory system you will learn the physical examination of the respiratory system and how to ask questions aimed specifically at that system.

 

[KFunk]

KFunk, do you think it's worth it do the BA course combined with Medicine, and what are the advantages/disadvantages? Thanks.

I'm afraid that I can't answer the full scope of this question because a) I think that whether it is worthwhile is a very individual question, depending on individual notions of 'worth', and b) because I haven't actually gone through the program such as would enable me to determine the benefits of taking the combined degree. Nonetheless I will offer you some pros/cons as I see them.

Advantages:
- A more liberal education, with opportunities to expand your knowledge in some humanities areas.
- Different and stimulating types of thinking - med has a great deal of rote learning, especially early on, and for someone like myself who enjoys analytical thinking and/or problem solving it can be nice to get a stronger hit of that stuff from humanities subjects.
- Extra skills/knowledge may lend themselves to more specialised career paths e.g. learn a language --> work overseas ... study philosophy --> sit on an ethics comitee ... study politics --> get involved in health policy.
- The development of writing/communication skills and all that other stuff which comes with a BA.
- The period in which you do arts subjects during 3-4 year can provide you with something of a 'breather' in the midst of your medical studies.
- More time at university (if you dig the academic thing / uni life)

Disadvantages:
- The degree becomes a year longer (if you are desperate to enter the work force).
- Extra work load during phase one: unless you do a bunch of courses in the summer you are likely to take a couple of your arts courses simultaneously with pahse one modules. After first year you should have an idea about whether you could handle the addition of an arts course which, on average, will consist of a 2500 word essay + an exam per semester (check the handbook for individual unit details).
- The other problem with taking an arts course at the same time as phase 1 modules is that you will occaisionally have clashes. Naturally you would choose your arts unit to minimise such clashes. If the clash is with a lecture then you can just listen to the lecture online and if it is a clash with a med prac then you can request to switch pracs and do it with another college at a time which suits your timetable. However, clashes with scenario groups and clinical tutorials are messier and should generally be avoided.
- Extra fees (relatively cheap ones though, arts = fee band 1, as apposed to fee band 3 for med).
- Separation from your year cohort... however, you eventually get split up to go to different teaching hospitals anyway and you should also know people in the year below you due to the structure of phase 1.


I hope that gives you an idea. If you have any other specific questions, e.g. about the structure of arts/med then feel free to ask, KFunk.