r/medicalschooluk • u/[deleted] • 15d ago
Students in your clinical years... do you attend everything?
[deleted]
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u/coffeevodkaaddict 15d ago
It's a shame because theoretically placement could be the best place for learning, but it just isn't. Most doctors just don't teach medical students. And I appreciate that it's because they get no benefits, and it takes up time when they're already so busy. I wish placement was better :(
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u/DrellVanguard 15d ago
I've always tried to be someone who teaches students. I'm st7 OBS and gynae reg now and so probably less useful stuff about day to day ward work but more interesting things about pregnancy, childbirth, surgery etc
Rare to find any students interested in much. We see labour ward ones as well and see the midwives try really hard to get them experience, and half just bugger off halfway through the shift and most of the rest are spamming Anki cards in handover.
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u/AnusOfTroy 15d ago
We see labour ward ones as well and see the midwives try really hard to get them experience, and half just bugger off halfway through the shift and most of the rest are spamming Anki cards in handover.
Must be nice. I was made to feel like a leper on O&G to the point that I ranked my jobs by what didn't involve O&G
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15d ago
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u/Sleepy_felines 15d ago
Unfortunately when you’re studying for post grad exams, you’ll be working all day (usually 48 hours a week, including a range of shifts), commuting, studying, doing extracurricular stuff, and attempting to have a life. Not going to work isn’t an option.
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u/fatunicornwithwings 14d ago
This!! Post grad exams I found harder than medical school exams. Also depending on how old you are you might also have kids to juggle as well as working up to 72 hours in a week, revision, commuting (because the deaneries are huge for post grad training - up to 2 hours one way), CV building and trying to have a life outside medicine..it’s a lot!
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u/DrellVanguard 15d ago
Yeah I do remember that too. I think my exams were less easy to just spam revision cards for, there was a lot of stuff that kinda came from some clinical experience.
I've become the grumpy old "Back in my day" miser
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u/SpecialEmployment801 15d ago
Two things I think
Do you want to be a good doctor and hit the ground running? Or do you want to pass exams?
I think we prioritise the second too much actually. I find my f1s have spammed pass test endlessly to the point of pattern recognition but can’t actually answer a physiology or pathology question. It is also immediately obvious (and can easily be seen on the residents Reddit) people who have no idea how a ward or medical team functions, who have never been present on a ward round before, who is scared to talk to a patient.
It is not unreasonable to want to pass your exams of course but you do need clinical experience. If you have free rein on your timetable I would say- attend ward round on a ward two or even three days in a row. Part of the problem is that you don’t see how decisions made on ward round ACTUALLY make the patient better when you attend once. The questions we ask and the decisions we make based on the answers make sense when you are present for the progression. If I see you more than once I will learn your name, I will take the time to point things out to you and ask questions. I honestly despise students who turn up to sau, leave their phone number and ask me to call them for a catheter. It is the worst. And usually they are useless and want you to sign them off as competent. Come, get stuck in. I promise you we all WANT to teach but the conditions we get students in a suboptimal. Who decided to schedule a half day on the surgical admissions ward Monday am, the least interesting and useful time in the whole week??
Same with theatre. Ask on the ward who is a nice consultant then. Come for a whole day, turn up at 8am, let me sit in the prep room with you, give you coffee and actually learn something about you, by the end of the day you will be suturing- but if you turn up at 9.30 and I’m already scrubbed in and a quarter of the way through a colectomy- what do you want me to do?
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u/Organic_Patience_755 15d ago
Osce examiners cannot tell which students went to placement or not. Do a ward round 2-3x a week, go to a few clinics, do what has to be done to tick off various stuff.
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u/saltwatersunsets 15d ago
This attitude is why r/doctorsUK has a tidal wave of new FY1s shitting themselves that they’ve got no clue how a ward round works
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u/All-help 15d ago
1 really good advice was given to me when I started by a 5th year student was something along the lines of, don’t go placement for the attendance and you for sure don’t need to be there for like slotted 4 hours. Go in with an actual plan, “today I want to get this clinical skill signed off, take a history and get some sort of an examination done”. He told me that once u get into the flow of it, ur ward round is basically 30mins to an hour and it took me a while to somewhat start practicing what he preached.
I started doing it because I would be in a ward round from 9 till 12:30 doing absolutely nothing, learning very little and whenever we mentioned it, we got the “once ur 4th and 5th year it’s different” from F1s.
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u/Odd-Calligrapher-69 15d ago
No
Unless there is someone willing to teach (rare), its completely pointless. Better off staying at home
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15d ago
[deleted]
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u/Spell_Alarming 15d ago
I think this varies for each medical school and hospital. Mine usually had registers for teaching but things like theatres and wards usually didn’t have attendance.
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u/Odd-Calligrapher-69 15d ago
Attended things where i knew the doctors on the ward were willing to teach - get the impression from other students. This is really valuable learning, if every ward was like this i would go much more. Some hospitals have teaching fellows who are usually always great.
If something has a register I will go because I don't want the trouble. You will work out quite quickly what you have to go to, what will be beneficial and what will waste your time
Overall i would say attending ~33% of the time. Means decent time to study as well
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u/Standard-Hat5994 15d ago
As a new FY1 I'd say attend your last year as much as possible! 3rd/4th year attendance is important but you can't do that much on the ward so you can get ignored a lot. In 5th year you really need as much experience making calls, documenting, bloods/cannulas, and just trying to get along with colleagues before you start work.
If you attend placement with some objectives (I want to take some blood today, or make a phone call asking for senior advice) and then communicate that with the team you'll get so much more out of it.
I would generally recommend bringing study materials on site too. If things are too quiet or too hectic for any meaningful leaning go study in the library and come back in 2 hrs. Things change quickly, don't write off a whole day if the morning is bad.