Last two cases

We are down to our last two cases before the final exam.

So, what are the med school giving us?

Panic attacks and attempted suicide. Very appropriate.

Med Revue Videos

I promised to post a link to Med Revue videos when they became available.

Some of them have been uploaded by youtube users themedrevue and rasej. Sadly neither have posted my personal favorite "are you smarter than a med student?" in which various med school academics are asked a question about the side effects of a drug and comprehensively fail to answer it; feel free to lobby for its inclusion.

Knowing anatomy doesn't always help

Who would have foretold, from the structure of the brain, that wine could derange its function?

--- Hippocrates (460-375 BC)

Learning strategies: Lecturer gets it right

I have written before about visual versus auditory learning styles.

One of our lecturers today takes this very seriously. His slides come in pairs: one presents a set of facts as words, the next presents the same facts as a diagram. Very simple but absolutely brilliant!

He also has a lovely, understated sense of humor. He explained the teaching strategy as "some people are visual learners and like to receive information in pictures. Others are textual learners and prefer to receive information by SMS".

Be an orthopod!

The orthopedic surgeon said that the really good thing about working in his specialty was that you get to meet interesting people who do interesting things. He illustrated this point with a picture of a hand with a four inch nail driven through it.

Surgical specialties careers evening

I don't want to be a surgeon.

Surgeons are morning people. In order to be a surgeon you have to be able to be present, conscious and able to make life-or-death decisions at 7am in the morning six days a week for the rest of your life.

I did however go to the UQMS surgical specialties careers evening partly because I like to know how the other half lives and partly because specialist college training programs are subject to trends and fashions like everything else and if the surgeons are doing something new an innovative the other colleges may well follow.

Streaming

The College has started "streaming" trainees. It used to be that there were two application processes: you first applied to be a surgeon, trained as a generalist for a few years and then applied for a sub-specialty (vascular surgery, neurosurgery etc). Under the new system you apply directly for a sub-specialty.

I have mixed feelings about this. It will be great for the people who know with absolute certainty that the want to be neurosurgeons (hi Amit!), they won't have to waste a whole lot of time studying for exams on the anatomy of the pelvis. It will be less great for people who don't know exactly how they want to spend the rest of their career.

Competency based training

I'm not sure if this is actually in place yet, but it is a direction they are heading. Rather that a training program consisting of x years doing this, y years doing that and z years doing the other, trainees will be required to prove that they have a specified list of skills. If they are good they can qualify in much less than x+y+z years, if they are not they might never qualify.

Again I have mixed feelings. It theory it is unimpeachable - good people should qualify fast, bad people should never qualify and qualification should be a measure of competence.

My problem comes not with the theory but with the practice and the rumblings I hear from overseas is that the only competence which is actually tested in these schemes is competence at filling in forms.