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Differences between different Grad Med courses?

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  • 14-03-2012 10:53pm
    #1
    pc11
    Registered Users Posts: 974 ✭✭✭


    Hi all,

    just wondering if there are significant differences in the various Grad Med courses in UL, RCSI, UCD and UCSS in the teaching approach or the schedule or sequence of learning or whatever?

    How much time off do you get in the summer and what do people do with that time? Are you in hospital or doing projects in the summer or something else?


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    #2
    tiredcity
    Registered Users Posts: 278 ✭✭tiredcity


    I can only speak for RCSI. First year you do a month long clinical placement in Beaumont after your exams and there's a TOSBA at the end, though it's not worth very much. You get about two months holidays. Most of the North Americans went home and did electives, most of the Irish either tried to make some money, did research or chilled. Second year you do exams a bit earlier - in mid May - and another month long clinical placement either in Connolly for the 4 weeks or Cappagh 2 weeks/Connolly 2 weeks - which group you end up in is dependent on an earlier clinical placement after Christmas. There's an OSCE during this period which does actually count significantly towards your final degree. After that we basically have 3 months off til mid September; most of us are either doing some electives in areas we think we're interested in or studying for Step 1 of the USMLE. As far as Christmas is concerned; first year anatomy final is before Christmas, rest of exams are after Christmas. Second year exams are before Christmas, which is amazing 'cause you actually get to enjoy that time off but we only had six days for revision before those exams and a big public health project due at the same time so it was a little frenetic. That's as far as I know at the moment.

    The teaching approach does differ quite a lot across the colleges - go to the open days if you can to familiarise yourself with the different courses. Ours is probably 75% lectures, 25% PBL at the moment but it does vary depending on the module.


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