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Medicine elective question

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  • 23-01-2012 9:06pm
    #1
    dropinthocean
    Registered Users Posts: 122 ✭✭


    Hi,

    This is a question for any med student who has completed a placement in Tullamore hospital.

    I am a medical student, studying at Trinity and I am from Offaly, and I'll be going into final year next year. I am considering doing my summer elective in Tullamore hospital for convenience. The problem is that I am essentially "going in blind" and could easily end up placed with a consultant who hates teaching or just hates students.

    So if anyone has been placed in Tullamore and knows of any really nice consultants, preferably those that love teaching, would you be so kind as to let me know, also, what it's like/ interesting/ plus what is expected of medical students there.

    I would preferably like to do a general surgery or general medicine elective, but I'm not ruling anything out.

    Thanks in advance


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    #2
    laserlad2010
    Registered Users Posts: 514 ✭✭✭laserlad2010


    Only spotted your post there now. Soon-to-be ex-UCD Student, spent a few weeks there during my clinical years. How can I present this to you fairly?

    Tullamore is a beautiful new hospital. Lovely wards etc. etc. Crippled by HSE cutbacks (80 out of 320 beds shut)

    Surgery - A load of b****x. I'm not going to name names but there you will meet tired, burnt-out surgeons and ABSOLUTE d**ks. Plus, all they do there are gallbladders, appendices and some minor bowel resections. Nothing exciting. I hate to portray it like that, but im not going to pull any punches.

    Medicine - I have less experience here. From friends feedback, some consultants were nice, Emergency Medicine was good I think.

    Staff - I know that the Mater send interns to Tullamore, so they'd be more than happy to help you during their elective. Otherwise I have seen some shocking excuses for doctors in that hospital. As you know yourself, the training posts will have decent docs but there are quite a few non-training posts there.

    Students - None that I know of during the summer. You may come across Limerick students who through sheer idiocy have established themselves as "sub-interns" rather than students, and as such are abused by staff in terms of errands. They will probably have deluded themselves into thinking that they are superior to normal med students, but a few events occurred when I was there to convince me that they were no better, in fact perhaps worse considering they had insisted on, and been allowed to, take on inappropriate responsibility.

    All in all, you won't win any prizes for having this on your CV. Then again I had no interest in point-scoring either. To be honest, having looked back on it all as a final year, my advice on electives is this:

    1. Do something you think you would like to do later.
    2. Find someone who can inspire you/has a reputation for being top notch (not necessarily has to be in James/Tallaght)
    3. Don't pick something hard. You'll start to hate it 3 days in, cos you should be off on holidays.

    Sorry for this rant but as UCD students we were treated like **** in Tullamore because UL were trying to force UCD out in education terms. With the right consultant it could be good but i don't recommend surgery at all.


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