Medicine N.U.I.G.

Mayoegian

Hi Guys!

I'm 16, and really want to do Medicine after my Leaving Cert. So, could ye answer a few questions I have about it please?:)

1. What's Pre-Med like?

2. How often are your exams?

3. How many are there approximately in your class?

4. Do ye have to do presentations?

5. What's your daily timetable like?

Any other info would be appreciated! I have checked up the different areas ye study, such as anatomy, physiology, psychiatry etc. so the questions I've asked are very general-just in case ya noticed I wasn't asking much about what you learn exactly.

Thanking you in advance!:)

Carsinian Thau

Mayoegian wrote: »

1. What's Pre-Med like?

Boring.

Mayoegian wrote: »

2. How often are your exams?

Feels like all the time. In reality, every few weeks.

Mayoegian wrote: »

3. How many are there approximately in your class?

120+

Mayoegian wrote: »

4. Do ye have to do presentations?

Yes.

Mayoegian wrote: »

5. What's your daily timetable like?

Busy. But plenty of time for socialising too.

It's fine really.

Mayoegian wrote: »

Any other info would be appreciated!

Be very careful that it's what you want. It can be incredibly hellish at times. It'd want to be worth it for you in the end.

dontlikeurmam

Can anyone tell me what the hours are like in pre-med??

Carsinian Thau

dontlikeurmam wrote: »

Can anyone tell me what the hours are like in pre-med??

A lot of free time. At most three or four hours of lectures in a day. Usually less.

There's also a few lab sessions thrown in every now and again (but they also don't take up much time).

You'll genuinely have a lot of free time tbh.





And, off topic: 1000th Post. Yay!

nuac

Medicine is a tough and long course. Even after your formal qualification furhter study courses and exams have to be done depending on what area of medicine you want to practise in.

As already advised be sure you know what is involved.

dublinboi

Pre-med is basically a prep/doss year for you, get you settled into the whole college life thing! It'd a good way of getting the "student experience", with out pressure. You do basic physics, some chemistry, biology and a patient contact module. You have exams every now and again in premed, like MCQs, and then you have your finals at the end of the year.

Exams for other years are every 4-5 weeks, by MCQ. In most modules 40% of marks are MCQ, and the rest is 60%. Other modules have weekly or two-weekly group work submissions, or are divided up oddly. Modules are semesterised, and there's a final paper in most subjects at the end of each semester.

113 in my class. Premed is generally 40-50.

For me, my timetable is 9-5 on Mondays and Tuesdays really, and then bits on Wednesday and Thursday, with very little/boring/missable stuff on Friday. But you're timetable doesn't include group work or elective modules. It still plenty of time to do stuff, so don't worry about that, there's always a night out not too far away in any case!

MedHead

Im gonna stick up for Premed here. Just did the year and had a great time. Really enjoyed the patient contact and the introductions to medicine module. Made some really great friends and got to enjoy myself more than I would if I had gone straight into 1MB3. Its a great year to chill before semester 1 of 1st med which everyone seems to give out about.

Id say if you can then go for it. Like I had a great year and now feel ready for 1st med.

Carsinian Thau

MedHead wrote: »

Im gonna stick up for Premed here. Just did the year and had a great time. Really enjoyed the patient contact and the introductions to medicine module. Made some really great friends and got to enjoy myself more than I would if I had gone straight into 1MB3. Its a great year to chill before semester 1 of 1st med which everyone seems to give out about.

Id say if you can then go for it. Like I had a great year and now feel ready for 1st med.

It's very good for that tbh.

I'm actually convinced that if I had gone straight into 1st Med that I would have buckled under the pressure and ended up in foundation med or out of the course.

Not that 1st Med is impossible but it's certainly a shock to the system.

It's good for settling into college, it provides a great transition into it.

Although, some aspects of the course itself (purely from an academic pov here) can be fairly boring...

MedHead

Agreed, Botany for example was the bane of my existanc in semester 1. Apparently they're changing the Chem course to whatever one the biomeds do to make it more medical which is prob no harm at all!

Carsinian Thau

MedHead wrote: »

Agreed, Botany for example was the bane of my existanc in semester 1. Apparently they're changing the Chem course to whatever one the biomeds do to make it more medical which is prob no harm at all!

Oh God! Botany! I don't think a class has ever given out so much over one thing.

That said, the labs weren't that bad at all. Just scribble something down and throw on a few labels and then head to the postgrad who'd sign anything without even looking.

The MCQ was alright in that though.

Changing the chem course would be pretty good. I always felt that there was too much of an emphasis on industrial chemistry in that. I could never see how the metals section could be linked back to patients, for example.

ZorbaTehZ

GODDAMN ****ING ALGAE!

I distinctly remember running around those labs after the instructor's demonstrations trying to grab their specimens and claim them as my own. I still don't know how in the hell I managed to pass that MCQ really.

MedHead

Actually as someone who's done 1st med what books would you recommend? Im going to be strapped for cash so I dont want to spend money on books if I can get away with using the ones in the library.

Carsinian Thau

MedHead wrote: »

Actually as someone who's done 1st med what books would you recommend? Im going to be strapped for cash so I dont want to spend money on books if I can get away with using the ones in the library.

Lippincotts's Biochemistry (it's a must, really).


For pharmacology, use the lecture notes. I got a nice pass in that with them only. They recommend Rang and Dale but I'm not sure how good it is - I never used it.

Physiology- Again, lecture notes are pretty good here. A lot of people go with Guyton for this but I find it too detailed so I tended to use Human Physiology by Vander.

For Anatomy, they say use Oxford Textbook of Funtional anatomy. Don't touch it! Totally useless book! Grey's is supposed to be the best (use the students edition). I just kept checking books with the word anatomy out from the library and I got through ok. The atlas they use is Netter's Atlas of human anatomy. It's good, but only if you plan on actually using it. Other than that, it wouldn't be worth the money.


There's no need to buy tons of books for this really. Definitely buy the Lippincotts for biochemistry though. You may need to check out a couple more for biochem every now and again from the library but not enough to actually buy them. Apart from that, get one for anatomy and maybe one for physiology. The lecture notes in Physiology and Pharmacology would generally be good enough to get you through just fine though.

MedHead

Thanks for the advice, now all I've to do is figure out why the registration system isn't letting me in! :P

Carsinian Thau

MedHead wrote: »

Thanks for the advice, now all I've to do is figure out why the registration system isn't letting me in! :P

If I think of anything else, I'll pass it on to you.


Which reminds me, get Netter's flashcards for Anatomy.

They have the location, origin, insertion, action and innervation of all the muslces you need to know. Very very handy for self testing and learning in semester 1.

Well, I'm not able to register until next monday. But you're going into 1MB3 so you should be able to at this stage. Maybe if you leave it til then it'll sort itself out.

mufc4lfe

Look at ye all with yer high points score!!!
Well done ye studied away for the 2 years and came out with 550+ pts
Where do you go from there?Off to Trinity and work yer little heads off studying medicine or law for another 4/5 years and then get a highly pressure filled job that may pay well but you wont even have time to spend any of it!!!
My L.C. 2009
7 SUBJECTS
4 HIGHER
3 ORDINARY
PASSED EVERYTHING!
275pts

Planning on becoming a member of An Garda Siochana(once things pick up in a few years) after I complete my 3 year course in my local I.T.

ZorbaTehZ

mufc4lfe wrote: »

Where do you go from there? Off to Trinity

Rubbish.

NUIG > Trinity.

Mayoegian

mufc4lfe wrote: »

work yer little heads off quote]

But wouldnt they have fairly big heads if they got so many points?

Metaphorically speaking of course!;)

whadabouchasir

mufc4lfe wrote: »

Where do you go from there?Off to Trinity

You do realise that this is the NUIG forum don't you?