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UCD or RCSI?

WoolahUrma

Hi All,

I got 59 in my Gamsat so according to last years numbers I'll have enough for both UCD and RCSI.

I'm having a tough time deciding between the two. Does anybody have a thought on any point of differentiation other than the obvious stuff on the websites?

Either will be great if the points don't go way up.

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nsa75

while you're discussing ways of making/saving some extra cash it might be worth looking into whether or not all med schools pay for students to do the Advanced Cardiac Life Support course during your final medical year. This is the case in RCSI....i'm sure it's the same elsewhere but it would be worth checking as the cost for such courses can be pretty steep.

You certainly can claim the dole between finishing final med and starting as an intern. This extra cash helps in a big way as once again you are hit with more expenses when finishing such as intern application fee, medical council registration (E300), and for some ACLS fees (if not covered by college or you failed the course first time round). Having a few quid to put towards a short break or few nights out after a hard few years is also very welcome of course!

BobbyOLGrinds

Final Med

Final year contains the following

Obs/Paeds
GP/Pysch
Public Health
Elective
Professional Completion

GP/Psych

GP and Psych are 6 weeks long each, the same as obstetrics and paediatrics. These course are much less organised and thus, much less intense than obs/paeds. GP is pretty cool, if a touch lonely. You spend time in Donnybrook and out in Phoenix Park. You also get to spend two weeks on GP placement. I spent one week in Donegal, which was absolutely brilliant. To be honest, that one week would nearly convert me to general practice. My other week would have put me off it for life.

Psych in SVUH is a low-stress 6 weeks. It’s not my cup of tea at all. All that being said, it’s easy to do very well in this subject with simple studying of the fundamentals. You’re assigned to a team in John of God’s for three weeks and another team in SVUH for the other three weeks. As I said, not my cup of tea but easy to do well in.

Public Health

This is three weeks back in UCD split between tutorials and lectures. It’s mostly statistics and report writing. It’s all pretty simple though it’s tough to keep the pressure up after GP/Psych. You have an essay to write and an end of term MCQ. It’s grand, though most people don’t do spectacularly.

Elective

Either you do another elective or you take a fantastically long holiday. I can’t remember the timeframe but it’s somewhere in the region of 8 weeks off if you don’t do an elective. Personally, I had done a three week elective in Res year, so I was only mandated to do another 3. I went to New York for a week after New Years, then did 5 weeks in Holles’ Street. This elective blew me away, but that’s just me.

Professional Completion

UCD have always bragged about this module, though I’m not sure if they’re the only college doing one anymore. It’s a very long course, stretching from mid-February to the start of May. It’s broken down into practical courses, i.e. BLS, ALS, etc. and lectures. The lectures are excellent and are by and large concise. We had our best ever lecture on Diabetes during this time, as well as some horrific ones on pathology. You also have what are called “Masterclasses”. These are seminars delivered by consultants, usually quite early in the morning. These masterclasses were excellent and really helped nail down some loose topics for me.

You also get two weeks of intern shadowing, where you essentially work as an intern for a week. This was great and gave us an idea of what we’d face on July 8th. It allayed a lot of my fears to be honest. I’m not sure if RCSI do the same, but if they don’t, it could be a good reason to pick UCD.

I hope this all helps. Any other questions about the course in UCD, fire away!

nsa75

[You also get two weeks of intern shadowing, where you essentially work as an intern for a week. This was great and gave us an idea of what we’d face on July 8th. It allayed a lot of my fears to be honest. I’m not sure if RCSI do the same, but if they don’t, it could be a good reason to pick UCD.

I hope this all helps. Any other questions about the course in UCD, fire away![/QUOTE]

RCSI have a month's rotation dedicated to ''Sub-Internship'' in final med - it is essentially a one month's placement with a clinical team that can be of your choosing if you get in quick enough.....it's geared towards getting experience with the role of the intern and general ward tasks like ordering tests, canulation, catheterisation, prescribing, charting etc. 4 weeks is probably a bit long for this kind of rotation so many use it as an extra opportunity to prepare for short or long-case final exams.....these need a lot of ward time. Those who do their Sub-Internship rotation in Emergency Medicine or Acute Medicine tend to great experience from the month benefiting from frequent exposure to common examinable cases and plenty of practical tasks - staff here tend to be more eager than most to get students involved.

This rotation is linked with another one week course in final med called Essentials of Clinical Practice - depending on what time of the year you are doing this it can have mixed returns. Very interesting and engaging if you have it before Christmas but difficult to fully engage with around exam time. Topics include Legal Medicine, Early Warning Score, Prescribing, Communication, Radiology, and some focused case topics to help while on-call during Intern year.

Basic Life Support (BLS) is taken in first and third year (refresher) before Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) is undetaken in final med. You also do a week of Anaesthetics, which is defo a bit short if it's an area your interested in, but it complements what you learn in ACLS very well and leaves you a little bit less terrified of taking on an arrest come intern year. Paediatric Life Support is done extremely well during your Paeds rotation in third year.

All of the above is important and very relevant as far as intern work is concerned. I will say though that most intern training schemes run induction courses that get everyone up to speed pretty quickly with what is necessary and essential for the months ahead!

tiredcity

I consider all the RCSI folk who’ve posted here my mates and to be fair, they’ve covered most of the major points already but as we got our last results today and ‘cause I’m CELEBRATING WILDLY BY DOING LAUNDRY I figured I may as well give you guys an unnecessarily exhaustive breakdown of third year and how I personally found it compared to the first two years. All opinions are my own and everyone’s experience was unique but overall I really enjoyed the year.

THE BEGINNING

Suddenly joining a class of 284 ranging in age from 21-47 when you’ve come from a group of 60 who’ve seen you daily for two years, learnt how to deal with your wildly fluctuating moods (Knackered! Stressed! Joyful! Cornflakes in hair!) and been a gigantic support structure through the good, the bad and the dossing times felt a bit like starting Secondary School again. Sure all your old mates were there but look at all the shiny new people! We were all a bit giddy and having been best mates 4evs in first year (seriously, our class was quite sickening in its love for each other) and gotten a bit cliquey and distant come second year (turns out you can have too much love :P) perhaps it felt appropriate for us now as a group to spend some time apart.

Anyway we all gathered like an excited hive for two days of introductory talks in Beaumont and eyed one another up. Little did I appreciate at the time that this would be one of the few occasions all year where I’d actually get to see everyone. We were split into groups of approximately 50, a mixture of GEPS and undergrads. Each group would rotate through the various subspecialties for six week intervals at different times; two before Christmas and three after. The sub-specialities were Obstetrics & Gyne, Paediatrics, GP, Medicine & Surgery and Psychiatry. We’d had the opportunity at the end of second year to pick a ‘travel buddy’ who’d (hopefully - but not always - willingly!) share the rotation with us and so we cheerfully bounced home for a final weekend of going on the lash (if you’d a easier rotation first) or cramming like a maniac doing required pre-course reading & quizzes (moi!).

OBSTETRICS & GYNAECOLOGY

I had the ‘worst’ first but it was by far my favourite rotation of the year. I started it with a fair amount of trepidation having decided to not-USMLE and yes-daytime telly my way through the previous summer, and for the first few days there was a fair bit of floundering about! However, I soon settled into it. We’d one week in a peripheral hospital (e.g. Mullingar) and five weeks in one of the bigger hospitals (Rotunda, Holles St, Drogheda etc). Again you were split up into smaller groups and each group rotated through a ‘theme’ each week e.g. infertility, gyne, ante-natal care etc. It was busy and you generally ended up pulling 8am-5pm days in the hospital I was in and occasionally popping in on Sundays if you needed to get cases. We’d to do quite extensive case write-ups on a number of important core topics and also some neonatal cases, so by the end of it you’d the history and examination stuff down. That really helped for the end of year OSCE. I learn best by osmosis and there was no way you could avoid getting a really good grounding in both obs and gyne by simply showing up each day. The tutors were brill, the consultants were fantastic teachers (albeit took no nonsense) and I loved every second even though the workload was significant. At the end of the six weeks you do a big OSCE which is like a structured practical/oral exam with 12 stations lasting 5 mins each or so. This runs the gamut of obstetrics, gyne and neonates, but while it’s hard to keep focused skipping between topics, it’s very fair and if you’ve shown up the majority of the time you’ll probably do ok. One fifth of the class got a first and one fifth failed, but usually only by a mark or two and could make it up in the end of year assessment. You also do a short (7 min, I think!) neonates examination. I got a baby who was wearing THREE babygrows so it was like a super pressurised game of pass the parcel with a lovely tiny human while attempting to do a neurological exam. I got very flustered but you’ll survive. At the end of the year you do an extremely lengthy and comprehensive 160 EMQ paper and a dedicated oral examination where you are given an obs or a gyne patient and given 20+ mins to do a full unsupervised history and examination followed by 10 mins of quizzing at the bedside on the hx and exam and a further 10 (or 20… my examiners were not ones to be held back by watches but they were very nice!) minutes of quizzing on obs (if you’d a gyne case) or gyne (if you’d an obs case).

All in all most people loved the course and we now have at least 1200% more budding obstetricians in the class.

PAEDIATRICS

Next up I had a lovely siest…oh no. I had paediatrics. This involved two weeks outside Dublin (e.g. Cavan) and four weeks in Dublin (split between Temple Street/Crumlin). We were all of 24 hours into our peripheral placement before ¾ of us caught a particularly virulent bout of Norovirus leading to a bleakly comedic night in our B&B soundtracked by multiple footsteps racing across the floor and slamming bathroom doors. The surviving ¼ knocked in to us the next morning with bottles of Lucozade and icy water for each of us proving once and for all that medical students are wonderful, kind people who look out for each other. Aside from that, the rotation was thankfully uneventful on the microbiology front, but our new-found appreciation for the WHO’s five moments was marked indelibly on our psyches and overwashed, cracked hands. This wasn’t quite as well organised as obstetrics (nothing was!) but I learnt a lot. The tutors were great again and I loved the small-group bedside tutorials, it was amazing getting that kind of intense teaching and being given the opportunity to meet kids with rare and challenging illnesses. History taking and examination could be difficult at times because you couldn’t do it without their parents present. Instead of waiting outside rooms for an undefined period of time, I used to invite myself along on other group’s ward-tutorials and found them a really beneficial experience. If you’re doing paediatrics all I can say is find your own way to make the most of it and you’ll really enjoy your time in it. Our end of course assessment involved an OSCE (shorter than the obs one!) and a long written paper where everyone was scribbling like a maniac until the very end. End of year was another OSCE (again, very fair) and an MCQ. Both pushed you a bit but were largely grand.

GENERAL PRACTISE

After a nice, relaxing Christmas filled with too many aborted 12 pubs, I started GP. We had a week and a bit of intro lectures including a lot of EBM, something we’d covered previously in earlier years but which was now applied in a more clinical context. I was in a large practise for three weeks and rotated around between various GPs, who all had their own niche interest. It’s the field I’ll probably end up in and I enjoyed it a lot, but in an ideal world I’d have loved to get a bit more hands on experience. Unfortunately, given the time pressures that GPs operate under that wasn’t always possible but the supervising GP did their best to let me take some histories and I nearly always got to examine the patient. Our final week was spent reflecting in group sessions on our GP experience, talking about ethical dilemmas etc. We had to submit a portfolio of work including referral letters, medication reviews and an EBM project for 30% of our grade but there was no formal end of course assessment.

MEDICINE AND SURGERY

Like GP, wherever you ended up for this had a major bearing on what you actually ended up doing or seeing but I quite liked the random nature of it. UCD do most of their Med Surg in third year whereas we obviously do all our sub-specialties first, so when I ended up in the same hospital as a load of UCD heads who'd just written medicine finals and were about to do their surgical finals it was something of an eye-opener as to all (ALL!) the work we’re going to need to do next year! I really liked the UCD students I met and it made me regret the fact that it’s so rare for different medical schools to cross paths as we’d learn a lot from each other. Needless to say I wasn’t exactly repping our lot well by failing to recognise the BLATANT PLEURAL EFFUSION ON A CXR while everyone around me was pointing out kerley b lines with their eyes closed but hey, I’ll get there and I’m afraid it’d been a while :P Interesting to see how the different colleges work though! We did four weeks medicine and two weeks surgery in the hospital I was in and while I’d love to say I got an amazingly well-rounded experience, the truth is it was a small hospital and it felt more like I was dipping my toe into the water for next year. It was still good though and we got some deadly tutorials from one of the Profs. End of course assessment was a MCQ and end of year was a three hour written data paper, another MCQ and a four station OSCE.

PSYCHIATRY

This was a surprise ‘cause I really didn’t think it’d be my bag at all. It’s so different from anything else you do in medicine it’s actually quite a joy to use a different set of skills. Consultants were mad into teaching in the hospital I was in and they genuinely did want to make sure you got to see as much as possible, so we did loads of ward rounds and clinics. OSCEs were the major form of assessment for psychiatry and both our tutor and consultant took our little group of six for an hour-long session every week and made sure we got lots of observed practise in counselling patients e.g. explaining schizophrenia to a relative or side effects of certain drugs which really helped. End of course and end of year exams were mostly OSCEs on various big topics in psychiatry as well as an MCQ and a written paper.

THE GOOD BITS

I loved being on the wards and not stuck in a lecture theatre. For the first time I felt like the knowledge wasn’t just in a book but in the patient in front of me and I actually appreciated things like an irregular pulse or a murmur or basal crackles and could put it all together and come up with something vaguely coherent.

I liked the variety. Six weeks is a very brief period of time but you’d be surprised how much you can learn in that short period if you’re in an intense environment. If you’re not mad interested by something, at least you’d be moving on soon to something else.

I found the teaching on the whole to be excellent and if you were interesting in learning, someone was nearly always happy to teach you.

The workload was manageable compared to first and second year. Obs, paeds and psychiatry are hefty but so long as you stay on top of stuff it’s a grand year. Having chunks of the grade done via the end of course assessments is reassuring too coming up to the hell that is end of year exams.

You’re left to your own devices. This could be perceived as a bad thing and at times it was a bit frustrating not having a clue what exactly was going on or expected because I’d been used to the micromanaged world of GEP, but the truth is, I don’t really like being spoon fed and I felt like I’d been in med school long enough to know what I was meant to be doing and just get on with it. The cloistered days of being able to knock in to the prof with a question over brekkie are gone, but help is still available if you need it and people generally started to treat you a bit more like you're part of the team. Obviously, experiences differ but I’d only one time where I felt someone was being especially harsh all year and on reflection, I think they had a valid point so I’ve taken what they said on board as constructive criticism. Studying medicine is never easy and some personalities are harder to take than others, some people talk in spikes and some sugar-coat things. One thing I have become is more resilient, but if someone’s saying something I don’t want to hear, well then maybe those are the times I should listen most intently.

THE BAD BITS

The undergrad class is absolutely lovely and I became friends with a good few of them, but have to say I did miss the GEPS. I saw my closest friends in the class less than a handful of times in the year as we were all on different groups and when I was on a mad intense rotation they’d be off having fun and vice versa so it just never quite worked out on the social front. That was partially my fault as I refuse to study in the college library so paths rarely cross unless a specific effort is made, but it was a different experience to previous years and I’m looking forward to all of us being in the same hospital again for final year.

Some courses could do with a bit more structure or a bit more allotted time, but those concerns have been relayed to the relevant departments and they do seem to take comments on board and change things generally.

I got lucky in that the majority of my rotations took place in Dublin, with occasional country excursions. Other people had the opposite. On the upside, the college does sort out all your accommodation so all you have to do is turn up and often you get more one-on-one teaching in the peripherals, but I was personally glad I got to go home to my own bed most nights.

I was constantly sick. My immune system really sucks anyway but bar OCD hand-washing and trying to get a decent amount of sleep there's little you can do to prevent getting ill (Hazmat suits not being quite as chic or acceptable as once hoped!). At one stage I was getting some sort of viral illness every ten days which was... unpleasant.

Exams went on for what felt like an ice age (if you were finishing a block which had an end of course exam you’d at least five weeks solid of assessment). They did end though and you honestly do need that amount of time given the sheer volume of information you’ve to review by the end of the year. It’s just a bit of a marathon and now I need to do a marathon to get rid of the five weeks of stress-induced biscuit guzzling

I doubt anyone made it this far but whatever route you choose to go, best of luck with your decision and I'm sure you'll be happy wherever you end up

House_QC

Thanks for all the informative posts everyone, especially etymon, BobbyOLGrinds, nsa75, and tiredcity.

Unfortunately, I will not be able to actually go over and visit either UCD or RCSI before commencing the course because I am halfway across the world - again.

So, what I really want to know is simply, which is better? RCSI or UCD?

I know none of you can really answer that one. It's probably a matter of personal preference. Still, I live in hope that somehow or another I'll come to the right decision by 1 July.

I have a few questions:

1. Do any UCD GEMs regret their choice of UCD? Would they prefer to have gone to RCSI?

Likewise, do any RCSI GEMs regret their choice of RCSI? Would they prefer to have gone to UCD?

2. Re: UCD Year 3 and 4 - If you choose GP and Psych in Year 3, do you have to do Paeds/Obs in Year 4? In Year 4, you choose between GP/Psych and Ob/Paeds, right? As in, you don't do both rotations in the final year?

3. What about infectious diseases? Can you do a rotation on this field? Or as an elective? What is the best hospital to do infectious diseases (esp. tropical medicine and complex infections)? E.g. Mater hospital?

4. Where is the best psychiatry hospital in Ireland?

5. How about ENT? Where is it best to do this, please?

Any relevant replies would be much obliged.

Cheers.

PS - etymon, I cannot believe you stopped your blog?! It was easily the best source of information for the GEM course!

tiredcity

Re: Trop med/infectious diseases - you do a module in it in GEP 2 and also a fair bit in paediatrics.

As far as 'the best' etymon's right - the minor differences between colleges are all six of one at the end of the day, it's mostly what you make of it.

PLAYSTATION4

BobbyOLGrinds,

Thank you for your UCD perspective! It's the school I'll be attending in September and your experience has made me feel confident that I picked the right place to study (RCSI passed me over so it was an easy "choice" on my part, my decision was between UCD & UL).

UCD was my first choice anyway due to a colossal difference in international tuition fees (€10,000/year), longer summer breaks which are ideal for completing clinical electives in the US, USMLE prep, and ultimately a lack of bad student experiences from UCD students.

BobbyOLGrinds wrote: »

You're welcome.

First and second year in UCD are quite tough going, don't get me wrong. I have a degree in physiology which helped enormously. The difference between clinical and pre-clinical is hard to explain. It's closer to an apprenticeship than a college course. What I'm really trying to say is that no amount of pre-clinical work will condition you to the clinical years. I've yet to meet an RCSI student who wasn't as flattened by the work as us.

It depends on the team. There is much less spoon-fed teaching once you reach the hospitals. Some teams like to teach and some don't, so some will tell you the list of hot-topics for their specialty and some won't. In a similar vein, some teams won't even talk to you while others will be buying you coffees at lunch.

Doing a bit of research yourself first, then ask a final year or Intern what the big areas are. Then ask the consultant about those areas. Mix in some book learning and randomly picking up pieces of information as you go, and you've got the gist of how the placements work.

BobbyOLGrinds

House_QC wrote: »

Thanks for all the informative posts everyone, especially etymon, BobbyOLGrinds, nsa75, and tiredcity.

No problem, you're welcome.

1. Do any UCD GEMs regret their choice of UCD? Would they prefer to have gone to RCSI?

I don't personally. That said, I'm sure had I gone to RCSI I would have had just a good a time. I feel the hospital choices are better for UCD. SVUH and MMUH are nice and central, being easy to get to early in the morning. That alone would make me choose UCD. As I said though, I doubt it makes any difference where you go. UCD is cheaper on the other hand.

Likewise, do any RCSI GEMs regret their choice of RCSI? Would they prefer to have gone to UCD?

I'm sure they all do :pac:

2. Re: UCD Year 3 and 4 - If you choose GP and Psych in Year 3, do you have to do Paeds/Obs in Year 4? In Year 4, you choose between GP/Psych and Ob/Paeds, right? As in, you don't do both rotations in the final year?

You're right. It's one or the other in 3rd year, with the remaining one in 4th year.

3. What about infectious diseases? Can you do a rotation on this field? Or as an elective? What is the best hospital to do infectious diseases (esp. tropical medicine and complex infections)? E.g. Mater hospital?

I'd say the Mater is probably better for infectious diseases, but there's not much in it. On top of this, no matter which hospital you choose you're not going to do much infectious diseases specifically. If you have a real interest you can choose an elective in ID (I imagine they'd be delighted for anyone to show an interest) and go from there.

4. Where is the best psychiatry hospital in Ireland?

Central Mental Hospital? I don't know really, the SVUH course is better than the Mater in UCD. I found I had a good understanding of Psych by the end of the six weeks, even though I didn't like it. I did quite well in it too. Again, the locations are great, SVUH and John of Gods.

5. How about ENT? Where is it best to do this, please?

I'm not sure if RCSI go there but UCD go to the Eye and Ear hospital on Adelaide road. This is a specialist hospital for Optho and ENT. Similar to ID, you'll spend such little time on ENT that I don't think this matters too much. Anything you'd like to spend time in, do an elective, and then it won't matter what college you're in.

pc11

I gather much of the RCSI days in Year 1 begin at 8 or 8.30 AM.

What is the timetable like in UCD? Can anyone post up some of their timetables from Year 1/2 in either UCD/RCSI?

Edit: someone did post UCD timetables here in the past, but recent ones would be good too.

pc11

About summer electives abroad, do many people do these? I think there my be some funding available in UCD or RCSI for these? Anyone have any stories of placements in developing countries?

Of course, doing this will stop you doing any summer work or claiming dole presumably, but I bet it could be very interesting.

Also, any stories of doing summer research work?

BobbyOLGrinds

pc11 wrote: »

I gather much of the RCSI days in Year 1 begin at 8 or 8.30 AM.

What is the timetable like in UCD? Can anyone post up some of their timetables from Year 1/2 in either UCD/RCSI?

UCD starts at 9am in year 1, ends around 3pm. Sometimes you have labs, pbl, etc. Year 2 has 8am starts a couple of days a week. Similar finishing times to year 1.

pc11 wrote: »

About summer electives abroad, do many people do these? I think there my be some funding available in UCD or RCSI for these? Anyone have any stories of placements in developing countries?

Of course, doing this will stop you doing any summer work or claiming dole presumably, but I bet it could be very interesting.

Also, any stories of doing summer research work?

Plenty of people do electives abroad, both in the developed and developing world. There are some scholarships available from the college but these are competition based and so you're not guaranteed one, obviously.

Friends of mine did a paediatric elective in Tanzania and absolutely loved it. I'm not sure how good it was with regards to medical knowledge. I didn't see any difference between people who spent time in Ireland vs. the rest of the world.

There's research opportunities after first year and second year in form of the SSRI scheme. You get a publication and a presentation out of it, though it does seem to be pretty boring. If you schmooze with a consultant/SpR, you should be able to get yourself some nice clinical research.

pc11

I have some good-ish news. I just talked to UB in UL. It will be announced next week that the UL fees are staying the same (~14,900), and so is their loan package.

So, I'm hoping that will indicate the status quo remaining in UCD/RCSI also and the BOI loans.

I just wish the UB package was somehow available for UCD/RCSI. I've tried that, but there is no way.

WoolahUrma

tiredcity wrote: »

Re: Trop med/infectious diseases - you do a module in it in GEP 2 and also a fair bit in paediatrics.

As far as 'the best' etymon's right - the minor differences between colleges are all six of one at the end of the day, it's mostly what you make of it.

Thanks for the exhaustive account of 3rd year, much appretiated.

I have a question which i know is pretty far ahead of what I need to know going in the door day one but, how do you orientate yourself for your 3/4 year exams?

Do they show you past exams or give you a guideline of the main areas of importance?

tiredcity

On phone so this'll have to be shorter then my last missive! Past papers were most available during first year which was when they were needed most. Recent papers were sorely lacking for all of our third year exams, but even though there's a lot less didactic teaching and a lot more self-study, tutors etc tend to hammer home the big topics. They can (and do) reach into the minutae to weed out the honours candidates.

For Obs & Gyne I studied the excellent course notes & read the oxford handbook of obs gyne. Paeds everyone uses the sunflower book & I reviewed using Toronto notes. GP/med surg not a single thing I'd studied came up on the final paper but thankfully I got through on previous years knowledge

Psychiatry we get an excellent printed book of notes and you do stuff off trickcyclists over and over for the OSCE. I did well in all four subjects so you don't need to go mad, just spend lots of time on wards and know the core stuff backwards.

WoolahUrma

tiredcity wrote: »

On phone so this'll have to be shorter then my last missive! Past papers were most available during first year which was when they were needed most. Recent papers were sorely lacking for all of our third year exams, but even though there's a lot less didactic teaching and a lot more self-study, tutors etc tend to hammer home the big topics. They can (and do) reach into the minutae to weed out the honours candidates.

For Obs & Gyne I studied the excellent course notes & read the oxford handbook of obs gyne. Paeds everyone uses the sunflower book & I reviewed using Toronto notes. GP/med surg not a single thing I'd studied came up on the final paper but thankfully I got through on previous years knowledge Psychiatry we get an excellent printed book of notes and you do stuff off trickcyclists over and over for the OSCE. I did well in all four subjects so you don't need to go mad, just spend lots of time on wards and know the core stuff backwards.

So you're going in blind!! Sounds daunting but I'm sure that when you're in the middle of it, it's not a bad as it seems from where I'm typing.

Thanks for the enlightenment, I think I'm getting a sense now of what to expect!!

tiredcity

In theory yes but in reality you'd have to have not turned up at all to be unaware of the common topics. For example, paediatrics give you a handbook which suggests core topics & surprise surprise, they draw from that in exams but obviously there's harder questions too! Plus everyone shares what they got for their group's end of course assessment & the year ahead give you pointers & there's exam lectures at the end of the year to explain the format as well. The nitty gritty of how many qs/marks etc will be involved are laid out in Marks & Standards. You may not have past papers but you know what's important and as a result likely to form the core questions on the paper. It's usually 60% predictable, 40% varyingly esoteric material. You'll be well used to it by third year so it's not a big deal. In first year and second year the past papers defo help though. Fourth year there's a lot more past papers/general review material floating about again. They're not as essential as you might think at this stage, I swear

pc11

I asked RCSI today if there's any sign of the fees amount for the coming year, but they say it won't be out until July. It doesn't help the decision on which college to pick when we don't have full information.

RCSI blame the HEA for this. If that is so, the HEA should really act in time to allow us to make the final preference choice with full information.

But, apparently UL have already decided on their fees, so I'm unsure what's really going on, frankly.

WoolahUrma

I'm off to the ucd open day on thursday to get a look at the building etc. Im gonna have a look at rcsi afterward and then its decision time. I think that you can still get into the open day but there is a waiting list so anyone that's interested should give them a shout today

diverboy83

If RCSI is saying that the HEA hasn't taken a decision yet, that means that the HEA "grant" might change as the fees are entirely a matter for the colleges and nothing to do with the HEA...

House_QC

WoolahUrma wrote: »

I'm off to the ucd open day on thursday to get a look at the building etc. Im gonna have a look at rcsi afterward and then its decision time. I think that you can still get into the open day but there is a waiting list so anyone that's interested should give them a shout today

Hi WoolahUrma,

Can you let us know your feedback about your visits to both UCD and RCSI, please?

Thanks!

pc11

diverboy83 wrote: »

If RCSI is saying that the HEA hasn't taken a decision yet, that means that the HEA "grant" might change as the fees are entirely a matter for the colleges and nothing to do with the HEA...

True enough, but the only fees we're interested in are the fees charged to us, so the exact mechanics of how they are derived aren't so important.

What I was saying that UL has seemingly been able to decide the fee for students, but I presume the HEA gives the same grant at the same time to each college, so, I am not sure how UL can know what its fees will be and RCSI can't. The point is we need to decide our preference before we have all the info. I'm wondering if calling the HEA would be pointless.

Just a thought: if UCD or RCSI announce a significant bump in fees, we should coordinate in calling on them to reconsider. It might just work if we put concerted pressure on them.

letsdothis

pc11 wrote: »

Just a thought: if UCD or RCSI announce a significant bump in fees, we should coordinate in calling on them to reconsider. It might just work if we put concerted pressure on them.

It absolutely won't work. The mechanisms for setting fees in the large colleges is incredibly complex and long winded and involves approval by various bodies and committees within the colleges. Once they approve fees, it's likely that they won't meet again until September/October.

Any effort needs to be put into improving access to finance (as per the other thread), lobbying the HEA to maintain current levels of funding for GEM (or indeed increase it) and to push the schools to find ways of keeping fees down.

WoolahUrma

House_QC wrote: »

Hi WoolahUrma,

Can you let us know your feedback about your visits to both UCD and RCSI, please?

Thanks!

Ill do my best at one of those exhaustive informative essay type posts that we all love

pc11

letsdothis wrote: »

It absolutely won't work. The mechanisms for setting fees in the large colleges is incredibly complex and long winded and involves approval by various bodies and committees within the colleges. Once they approve fees, it's likely that they won't meet again until September/October.

Any effort needs to be put into improving access to finance (as per the other thread), lobbying the HEA to maintain current levels of funding for GEM (or indeed increase it) and to push the schools to find ways of keeping fees down.

Ok, have we tried lobbying the HEA? I haven't seen any mention of that here. I wonder what section of the HEA is involved?

pc11

I talked to the HEA today, more in the funding thread.

pc11

It's all gone very quiet here - has everyone decided??

I haven't, still very unsure. RCSI is down first right now.

WoolahUrma

I was at the tour of UCD and I took a look at the GEM facility out in sandyford.

First off, my opinion my be a bit skewed by the fact that on the UCD tour I met some people and on the rcsi tour I met the security guard and the janitor.

Having seen both it's clear that the choice between the two is really a personal preference decision.

If you want to be really well looked after as an individual then RCSI is for you.
The sandyford facility is for GEP 1 only. It's a shiney new looking place. Everything is very managable size wise, you won't be blown away or distracted by a massive campus, library or student population. The ground floor consists of lecture theatres and some tutorial rooms. The first floor is the canteen which I really liked. Spacious and a nice little kitchen. A few hang out areas on both floors. I would imagine that the set up there lends itself the the class you'll be in becoming very close. The luas is out the front so its a direct line into stephens green. The kicker for me was the parking. There's a numbered space for each student which is off the chain. A close friend is going out with a lecturer in RCSI. The word is that they are told to respond to all student queries within 24 hours. I'm sure that this is not always the case but I would image that your still looking at a more attentive staff than anywhere else. The student is king or queen as I was told.

UCD visiting program consisted of a talk before hand on the course and the admissions policy which was useless to anyone who has researched what they want to do. Might have been worthwhile if you were in fifth year which a few that attended were, I think. The tour was on the ball though. The health sciences building is very nice. The building itself is modern and it's large enough to accomodate all x thousand students but it has a nice compact feel to it. The library looks great but I assume that how well it works comes down to how effective the library police are there. The lecture theatres are a little larger and they allow for an internet uplink to special rooms in the UCD hospitals for people that are not able to make it back to the campus. The mock wards are a nice touch. Very realistic, great equipment and some top class mannequins. Probably no substitute for the real thing but if your going to be on campus its not bad. One guy kept fondleing one of the baby manniquins. They have a functioning lab and facilites for the physios, nurses and all the med people that you will be sharing the building with. They also have little bits of art that point to the origins of medicine in ucd. This brightens the place up a bit but I wouldn't let it swing you. The final part of the tour was the student centre which included the 50m pool. They have a pharmacy, drama soc have a newly built theatre if that's your thing, a cinema, a list of serious clubs and societies the length of me arm and I'm probably leaving out a hell of a lot. Not sure about the parking situation.

The RCSI building is in an industrial estate which I didn't like and how much I didn't like it was thrown into sharp focus having just been out to the belfield campus. The big thing for me now is, where do I want to be for the two years? I can't get the special attention that I'll be getting in RCSI out of my head but If it's coming down to the campus/ facilities then its UCD all the way. I didn't think I'd give a toss about being part of a larger Uni. community but I think that maybe I do having been out there.
On a side note, the weather was perfect so the campus looked great. I've been out to UCD several times and I've never had anything too great to say about the design of the place (austere etc) but, it did have a charisma about it.

So, to finish, I still haven't decided. Although I have more pointed questions now. 1. What are the interactions between the UCD GEMS and staff like? How helpful are they?

nomoreexams

I asked about parking in UCD when i was at the last open day- it's first come first serve. I've been out a few times for work lately and I've always gotten a space because I'm there before 9.00 so it doesn't sound like its an issue.

I was the same as you- thought I wouldn't care about the uni community but when I got out there it seemed like an attractive bonus.

On a side note- fondling baby guy- haha

nomoreexams

Actually now that I think about it, the security guard in RCSI (sandyford) told me that the car parking spaces weren't assigned and that there was never enough to go around so you'd to be in early to get a space?! He said there were 18 spaces for students. The rest were for staff. Maybe they're planning on changing it for this year though.

Stereomaniac

UCD in general, on the main campus, doesn't have enough car parking spaces for it's student body. So I would imagine the place you are talking about is no better. I returned there last year to play a gig and the thing was a bit of a nightmare. Good riddance to the hardship.