Human Health & Disease

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Is there any Boardsies who do this course and could give me information about it?

I'm hoping to do medicine, but this seems to the best option for a backup. My questions are:

1. Are the majority of students in this course ones who want to go on to study medicine?
2. Do many leave after the first year to go into medicine?
3. What are the hours like?
4. Does this course have overlap with medicine or is it more theory behind it rather than practice?
5. Would biomed be a better backup option?

If I do get this course, I'm not sure whether I'd keep repeating the HPAT and try get into medicine, or stick with it and get the degree and go through GAMSAT.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hello, I am the resident HHD Boardsie (there's a few of us floating about but I'm here most often :P). I'm in my 3rd year of the course, and had originally intended to do medicine (I don't anymore ) so I should be able to answer your questions!

1. This is a little tricky to answer as the trend seems to be changing as the years go by. A large proportion of my class and the class above me had medicine 1st on their CAO, many still intend on studying graduate medicine after completing the degree. A number of classmates in my year originally wanted to do medicine but now want to do something different (this includes me, you'd be surprised how your views & priorities on these things change once you get out of school!) However I've also talked to a lot of this year's 1st year class through peer mentoring and it seems a smaller number of them had medicine first on their CAO than in other years, and most of them had placed HHD first. You will always have people who want to do medicine in HHD though, it's in the nature of the course & its content.

2. Usually a few will leave after 1st year to do medicine after repeating their HPAT. It's not a mass exodus though, in my year only 4/32 left to do medicine. I got offered med & didn't take it so like, that can happen too :P

3. The hours are pretty manageable, not as much as you'd expect for a health sciences course but don't underestimate the work load; a lot of the time you're expected to be doing your own study outside of contact hours to stay top of the material- this becomes more and more important from 2nd year onwards.

4. There is a good amount of overlap with the medicine course; in 2nd year you will cover all of the 1st med anatomy & physiology, and in 3rd yr you will do the 2nd med pharmacology course. You will have covered a large part of medical theory during your 4 yrs in HHD and learn a lot of practical lab based skills but you won't be taught clinical practice type stuff because it's only really relevant to people who will be doctors therefore it's only taught in med.

5. I assume you're speaking of the Biomedical, Health & Life sciences course in UCD. I don't know much about it, or anyone who's studied it so I can't really answer that. It seems pretty similar to HHD at a glance and I did have it below HHD on my CAO but I couldn't tell you which would be better as a back up to medicine as I only know what my course entails! I can tell you I love my course if that helps? :P

I hope that helped you, feel free to PM me at any time with questions you have about the course & I'll do my best to answer them