UCD graduate medicine

Hello everyone.
I'm a graduate medical student in UCD and I stumbled upon the forum earlier today. This post contains my impressions and opinions of the graduate course offered by UCD and may be of interest to some of you.

My original post on my first year in medicine may be found here
http://www.newmediamedicine.com/forum/university-college-dublin-medical-school/46062-course-information-impressions.html
The site also has a good deal of other information relating to the gamsat and graduate medicine in Ireland and abroad.

Information on the course may also be found at this UCD site
https://myucd.ucd.ie/program.do?programID=87


Our class is 37 or 38, 2 people have withdrawn from the course. Just over half the class is from Ireland, 3 are from the US and the rest are from Canada.
Ages range from 21 to 34 and we have diverse backgrounds ranging from scientists of all types to lawyers and a property economist.
We all seem to be getting along well and have had ample time to socialise.

Attached is a copy of my timetable for two weeks.




It should be noted that it varies from week to week, tutorials may not be scheduled or only an hour in length. Most weeks don’t have a hospital visit and instead will have a patient centred practice lecture from 9 – 10. It is important to note that omitted from the timetable is the cell-cell signaling and communication course, 3 or 4 lectures a week, as I had an exemption.

A quick aside about exemptions, you need to apply at the start of term. You’ll need transcripts and an overview of your previous course and the units taken.
Half the class applied for an exemption to cell-cell signaling and all with the exception of two got it.
I know of one person applied for an exemption to molecular basis of life and disease but was informed that an exemption would be unlikely as the course is such a major component of term one.

Anyway, back to the timetable. Personally I think it’s really nice, even with the cell-cell signaling course it wasn’t too bad. With the exception of molecular basis, which I’ll talk about in a bit, the workload isn’t too bad either. Our four required courses are specifically for the grad med course, so it’s in a small lecture theatre and usually you’ll be able to get a question answered.

Around 6 weeks into the course we were assigned tutors, med students that had entered as grad med students, before UCD sorted the course out. Their function is just to make sure we’re doing ok, I assume anyway. This really wasn’t thought out very well as our tutors weren’t given too much instruction as to what they were supposed to do, were given this job at short notice and my class had already settled into the course. These problems shouldn’t occur next year as I think that my class recommended that a tutor be assigned at the start of the year.
We’ve had a number of meetings with the course coordinators and organisers because this is the first year the course has been run and they seem to appreciate our input and suggestions on improving the course. On the topic of staff; from lecturers to admin they all seem very pleasant and helpful.
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The 1st term consists of four required courses:

1. Cell-cell signaling and communication
A basic course and if you’ve done a biological science after 1st year college it should all be familiar to you. This unit has a mid term and an end of term exam.


2. Human form
This is our anatomy unit and covers a small amount of histology and embryology but is primarily focused on the back and upper/lower limbs. The unit has two in term mcq exams, each worth 15% and an end of term exam.

There is two hour dissection lab once a week. I initially went into dissections with some apprehension, nervousness and trepidation mixed with a fair amount of excitement and curiosity. After the first dissection I actually found myself looking forward to the next.

You don’t have to dissect, you can observe if you so choose but it really is the best way to learn so I recommend you don’t miss the opportunity and whenever possible dissect. Your time in the dissection room is quite limited but you can, with permission and if no other class present, enter the room to study or dissect.

Our class has two cadavers with about 19 students to each one, we complained pretty much the entire first term about this but this is not going to change. It’s not as bad as it sounds though. Due to the miracle of bilateral symmetry in humans we reduce the number of students to around 9 a side. Of these 9, 3 will dissect. 3 will study osteology and the final 3 will study the prosected, already dissected, material.

The room itself is quite impressive, bright, spacious and due to individual air downflows on each table there is very little smell of chemical preservatives. The only time you experience the preservatives is when you’re studying the prosected material. Not surprisingly the room is rather cold so wrap up before you head in.

This unit also has a two hour tutorial run by consultants which introduces students to the GALs( GAIT/ARMS/LEG/SPINE) musculoskeletal examination.
I really didn’t appreciate how informative this actually was until too late. Ask questions and volunteer to try performing the examinations. I cannot stress this enough. These people are expects in their fields and you can learn so much.


3. Molecular basis of life and disease
This unit covers biochemistry, cell biology, disease, genetics, immunology and pharmacology. It’s designed to bring those without a biological background up to speeds so it covers an enormous amount of information very quickly and it is easy to fall behind.

This unit is very intensive. If you have a degree in the biological sciences you’ll find parts of the unit familiar but there still will be a lot that you’ll have not covered. I’ve a degree in some of this stuff and I was amazed at the speed topics were covered. If you don’t have a background in this area it will appear daunting and overwhelming. While the lecturers and those giving tutorials will do their best to explain topics you will have to devote a large amount of time to enable you to keep up with the lectures. If you need help with this unit, or any others, I’ve found the lecturers to be very accessible and remember that many of your classmates have covered some of this material before and I’m sure will be happy to help.

This unit has a mid term mcq exam worth 25%, a small project worth 20% and two end of term exams, a mcq, 20%, and a short answer paper, 35%.

4. Patient centred practice
This unit is quite different to the ones above. This course is run by two GPs and is very group discussion orientated and aimed at introducing students to ethics, history taking and the doctor-patient relationship. You’ll also have a basic first aid course taught by the Red Cross. You’ll go on hospital visits, Crumlin, Holles St, Mater and Vincent’s and most important of all you and another student will visit a patient to take a history and discuss their illness.
There are numerous assignments during the course which account for 80% of the unit. There is one 30 min end of term exam.

Electives:

One elective is taken from five courses, the name of one escapes me at the moment though. The course coordinators informed students that they would prefer if those of with a science background would take the non science electives and vice versa. I don’t have too much information on these with the exception of my elective social history.The choice of elective isn’t made for a week or two so you are free to sample each of the courses.

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Electives:

Anthropology
Seemed to be a problem in either this course or the other which I can’t remember which prevented our students from taking them.

Food diet and health
You’ll find out why cow’s milk is coloured the way it is, this was an actual question on the mcq exam. It has a mid term and exit mcq exam. Those that took the course didn’t seem to have any issues with it.

Introduction to cell biology
Basic introduction to cell biology, a great deal of overlap with cell-cell signaling and communication. Should be useful for those without a biological science background.

Social history of Irish healthcare
Affectionately known as story time. This is a rather easy and very pleasant course, given by an affable, engaging lecturer. The course mostly covering the period from 1800 onwards. It has a one hour mcq exit exam.

Medical physics
Don’t know too much about this but it is continuous assessment with no exit exam.




Term 2

This term is predominantly cardiorespiratory and we have six modules, one more than the 1st term (two more for me as I had an exemption from a term one module)

The modules are:
MDSA 10220 Structure of the Thorax
MDSA 20150 Cardiorespiratory Physiology
MDSA 30160 Cardiorespiratory Disease
MDSA 30170 Cardioresp Therapeutics
MDSA 30040 Principles of infection
PHPS 20010 Personal and Population Health
Again exemptions need to be applied for at the beginning of the term!

Timetable

Not all Fridays were free as we sometimes had tutorials.


In the cardiorespiratory modules we move from the basic anatomy of the thorax to the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions within the thorax (physiology) to deviations in normal function (disease) and to the medications used in treating disease (therapeutics).

MDSA 10220 Structure of the Thorax (5 unit module)
Not too much to say about this. This is our anatomy module, majority of the lectures cover the contents of the thorax. We also had 3 lectures on the anatomy of the head and neck and two on imaging techniques.
The module had two mid term exams, one mcq (25%), a spotter exam (20%) and an end of term exam (45%) which is essay based. Write three essays, one of which is compulsory.
The module has 5 dissection practicals
Like the anatomy module in the 1st term there is quite a lot of detail to memorise but it’s a nice module and the lectures take their time covering the information.


MDSA 20150 Cardiorespiratory Physiology (10 unit module)
Our physiology module
Marks for this module come from:
3 tutorials worth 10% each
Midterm exam worth 20%
End of term exam worth 50%. Essay questions, answer 5 out of 6
The breakdown for marking takes an awful lot of pressure of the final exam, which actually was one of the nicest exams we had.
The lecturers are great, moving through the material at a nice pace and they keep things interesting. The 3 tutorials aren’t difficult and give an introduction to spirometric techniques and ecg.


MDSA 30160 Cardiorespiratory Disease (5 unit module)
While this is a 5 unit course I’m of the opinion that it requires more study and covers more information than physiology. The module covers illness affecting the circulatory and respiratory systems. The module has 4 tutorials, 4 clinical sessions covering cardiovascular history taking and examination including blood pressure measurement, characteristics of the pulse, palpation and auscultation.
There is one mid term exam, mcq/emq (20%), and a final exam combining of mcq/emq and short answers. I found this the hardest of the modules. It’s not difficult but there is an awful lot to cover.


MDSA 30170 Cardiorespiratory Therapeutics (5 unit module)
Using drugs in the prevention and treatment of disease.
One midterm true/false with neg marking (25%) and an end of term exam, emq (75%), and oh boy what an exam that was. This caused a huge amount of concern in our class.
The material covered in the module was by and large fine. We were introduced to certain drug classes, alpha/beta blockers, ace inhibitors, arbs, anticoagulants, diuretics etc and what diseases they are used to treat. The exam, in my opinion, assumed a level of clinical experience that we just did not have.
For example five questions related to anticoagulation. We were given a list of ten drugs and five short descriptions of patients. Of the ten drugs given, perhaps 5 or so could potentially be used in each of these situations, heparin, warfarin, one or two antiplatelet drugs and thrombolytic drugs. We just didn’t know in which situation which one of those drugs would be preferentially used. I, and I suspect the majority of my class, thought that we had either failed or would be a borderline pass. Our class rep spoke to the head of the module, who is terribly nice and helpful person, about our concerns so this shouldn’t be a problem next year.
Thankfully, we all passed.


MDSA 30040 Principles of infection (5 unit course)
We are mixed in with the 3nd year med class for this.
This module covers bacterial, viral and fungal infections, their method of action, their treatment and susceptible populations.
Lot of information and a lot of small details to be memorisied but it’s not too bad, there is a good bit of repetition in the short answer paper. We had one mid term mcq (25%) and an end of term mcq/emq (30%) and short answer paper (70%).


PHPS 20010 Personal and Population Health (5 unit module)
We are mixed in with the 2nd years for this.
This is a bit of a mix, combing lectures on psychology, sociology, public health, clinical study design. I didn’t really enjoy this module despite the obvious embarrassment of the lecturer during the Freud lecture. It is however a pretty easy module and shouldn’t pose much of a problem. The workload is considerably less than the other modules, probably because it’s a 2nd year unit.
My love for the module was also lessened because of the small group project. In this you’re teamed with 5 other students and required to give a powerpoint presentation to around 20 or so people and submit an essay on your project topic at the end of term
The project topics are:
Stress
Exercise
Obesity
Type II diabetes
Eating disorders
AIDS
Infertility
Suicide

This is worth 33% of the module and we also had a 1 hour end of term essay exam (67%)


PBL
We had a small pbl group in which we covered some common presentations of cardiorespiratory disease. I really didn’t put much effort into this, which was just plain stupid. It’s a great opportunity to reinforce the information covered in your lectures and to expand upon the topics covered by lecturers.


GP Placement
During the course of the term we had three GP placements, 2-3 hours each. You and a classmate will be sent to a GP and will take a patient history and observe the GP at work. What each group did varies and depends on the GP, some got to do patient examinations while others didn’t get much patient contact at all, it all depends on luck, your GP and their schedule. I got to see a few heartwatch patients. Heartwatch - ICGP Web Site
I thoroughly enjoyed my time in the surgery. You come out really energized and it is so exciting to think that in a few short years we’ll be seeing and treating patients, also a wee bit scary. It’s also a great opportunity to see if you’d enjoy being a GP and I know a few students have arranged to spend more time with their GP over the summer.

James B Coakley Medal for Dissection
I and a fellow classmate were fortunate to be accepted for this competition. I suggest that if you're interested in anatomy you really should apply for this. It's a great opportunity to practice dissection. My classmate and I are, currently, the only people using the dissection room so it’s a much more pleasant experience compared to the cramped nature of the in-term dissection practicals.
Each student, 10 this year, is given a dissection project. Supervision of the project is limited, we’re pretty much left to decide ourselves how to proceed. We have our own swipe cards to access the anatomy museum and the dissection room, Mon - Fri and 9 – 5.
My classmate is dissecting the thigh and I am working on the thorax, which means I get to repeat everything we did in anatomy this term, including a bit from term 1, on my own.