Clinical Years

[Mr. McDuck]

I'm just applying this year, so this won't really relavent to me for a while; however, a terrible combination of free time and curiosity leads me to wonder about something. I read somewhere that clinical rotations are closer to an observership in Ireland and the UK. Is this true? Or do medical students in their clinical years actually actively participate in patient care?

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[deleted21609]

I'm just applying this year, so this won't really relavent to me for a while; however, a terrible combination of free time and curiosity leads me to wonder about something. I read somewhere that clinical rotations are closer to an observership in Ireland and the UK. Is this true? Or do medical students in their clinical years actually actively participate in patient care?

At my old school in Ireland there was no meaningful participation whatsoever. That isn't to say that you don't go through the motions and pretend to take part in a limited portion of patient care; it just isn't actually used and is basically limited to H&Ps. Other schools might be different?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

What school did you attend, if you don't mind me asking? That's kind of disappointing. Anyone else have any insight?

 

[13538]

The clinical years in Irish schools are less "hands on" than US schools. However, I think you have to take a look at the end point in Ireland and in the US... The final med exams in Ireland involve taking a slick history and physical examination and then presenting it and possibly demonstrating some physical findings...looking like you've done it thousands of times before. In a sense there's a lot of "theatrics" involved...esp if you want to do well. The downside is, no one will care how slickly you can demonstrate shifting dullness at 3am on 1st July of your internship....esp if you don't know how to draw a few bloods and know what tubes they go in...

US interns hit the ground running and can do all that scutwork cause they did it as students. However, they don't have final clinical exams to pass in order to qualify. Plus, constant scrutiny while on the rotation means they'll put more face time on the floor anyways.

There's pros and cons to both systems... I did an elective at a US university teaching hospital last summer and I witnessed surgical interns unable to describe/examine a neck swelling and give a differential or take a proper history of weight loss and come up with a resonable differential...-ie- basic pass/fail stuff for final med here in Ireland!

Different countries...different systems! A surgical intern would never get to set foot in the OR here in Ireland and even a surgical SHO (PGY-2 and 3) would be lucky to get much OR time...

No matter which system you train in...it all balances out in the end.

 

[13538]

At my old school in Ireland there was no meaningful participation whatsoever. That isn't to say that you don't go through the motions and pretend to take part in a limited portion of patient care; it just isn't actually used and is basically limited to H&Ps. Other schools might be different?

I've just finished obs+gynae in one of the Dublin maternity hospitals and when you do see a pt in the ER, the admitting SHO/Registrar will put your note/plan in the chart and use it...

Also in medical and surgical outpatient clinics (depending on the consultant), if you see a new patient, they will expect you to write the history and physical findings in the chart along with a plan. Once you've presented the patient to them and discussed the plan...the consultant usually just countersigns the note. It depends on the consultant though...and how good you are. If the clinic is busy and you're slow you'll slow everyone up...

Really depends what you want out of your time in the hospital. Offering to see new patients in outpatients and work them up is not expected but its valuable and most consultants will let an able student do it...

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Hmm, I didn't think of it that way. I guess it really depends on how you look at it. If you're going to say it's not as good because you don't spend time running around drawing blood and the like, then I guess you won't get as much out of it. I'd love to be able to take a great H&P and come up with a stellar A&P right out of med school. I guess the other stuff doesn't matter much if you can't diagnose the patient.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Trinners. You said you did an elective at a US hospital. It seems to me like you felt pretty confident in your abilities and were able to hold your own in a completely different system. I guess that's what I was asking, because I'd love to do an elective or two in the US, and even though it's a long ways away, I get to thinking about that stuff.

 

[deleted21609]

It's not as if US students spend most of their time doing scut. They see new patients with no diagnosis and sometimes no chart, do an H&P and make an A/P. Then, they'll see that patient every day through the hospital course to follow the pts progress, check labs, recommend additional drugs or dosage changes, possibly perform minor procedures, then write transfer orders, discharge orders, etc. The attending will expect you to come up with a reasonable plan and to recommend labs, imaging, tx, etc. The attending will listen to what you think then correct your mistakes and ask you about any important points you missed.
In Ireland you mostly see patients who are already on the wards. You do a really good H&P (A/P not necessary usually), possibly present it to an SHO or rarely someone more senior, go home and never see the pt again, never find out what tx was given, or how the pt did unless you just find out on your own. The charts are around so you could check to see what has happened , and you probably should do this as much as possible but all you have to do is find another patient for another H&P. Irish medical school is basically lots of reading plus lots of H&Ps. You don't have patients of your own that you follow. You will read about treatment and be tested on it, so I'm not saying you don't learn anything about it. You just learn it more in the context of books rather than patients.
About those surgical interns who can't evaluate a neck mass. I'm sure you had classmates who were able to do surprisingly little. Individuals not able to do some limited thing isn't a good reflection on a system. I recall my classmates knowing just about nothing about cbcs's, chem's, lft's, and other very basics labs for example.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Seems like you get out of it what you put into it. Is the opportunity to be more aggressive and hands on there? Or are you actually limited in what you can do? Like, if you want to follow a patient and keep some continuity, are you able to do this?

BTW: I'm not hinging my decision to apply on this, I'm just curious.

 

[medgirl20]

Seems like you get out of it what you put into it. Is the opportunity to be more aggressive and hands on there? Or are you actually limited in what you can do? Like, if you want to follow a patient and keep some continuity, are you able to do this?

BTW: I'm not hinging my decision to apply on this, I'm just curious.

You can follow patients if you want some teams assign you patients to follow but there's nothing to stop you following patients even if the team doesn't assign them to you.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Awesome.

 

[deleted21609]

Awesome.

Awesome? More like half-aszed, mediocre, etc.
'Sometimes' being assigned patients in medical school is awesome?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Yeah, I meant awesome that they don't restrict you from following patients. Yes, I'd rather be assigned patients and be responsible for their care as long as I'm on the serivice, but I'll take what I can get, you know?

 

[Slam Master J]

Hey Student.ie,

Would you mind giving us a bit of a refresher on your experience? Are you a US student in Ireland? Which school? What are you doing now that you are finished? Are you suggesting that school in Ireland is useless if you plan on practicing in NA? Just wondering, because thus far your comments seem to suggest that you're a bit bitter at the education you recieved. I'd rather avoid ending up in that position.

 

[deleted21609]

Hey Student.ie,

Would you mind giving us a bit of a refresher on your experience? Are you a US student in Ireland? Which school? What are you doing now that you are finished? Are you suggesting that school in Ireland is useless if you plan on practicing in NA? Just wondering, because thus far your comments seem to suggest that you're a bit bitter at the education you recieved. I'd rather avoid ending up in that position.

I was a student in Ireland. Now I am a resident in NA. School in Ireland is not useless since you can at least become some sort of doctor when you're done. You will just not be as well educated as you would if you stayed home for school, but you'll eventually catch up during residency. You may not be in the specialty you want though, so in that way you can never catch up. Your odds of getting into any but the least competitive specialties is very low. Sure some people are exceptions, but you probably won't be- that's why they're called exceptions. Your education will consist largely of buying books and reading them/self-teaching. Teaching is poor, sometimes hostile, and too expensive for a home-school education.

I got honors in 80-90% of my courses. I had one pass-fail oral during my time in Ireland. >50% of the foreign students in my class had a pass-fail oral in this class along with 2-3% of Irish students (most of whom had the test ahead of time). During this rotation the prof made racist, sexist, and anti-American comments though in the end Americans, Canadians, Asians, etc. were all part of the pass-fail oral fiasco. Every other class had a reasonably representative portion of Irish vs foreign having pass-fail orals, which only stands to point out how unfair this prof was. The fact that this bias could affect our careers continues to piss me off. I'm sure similar bias existed in other courses, but a) I was never affected so much and b) it was never so obvious in other courses.

Among my closest friends from my class in Ireland, the majority failed their step 1 & 2 the first try (some others and I got >220). Maybe we worked harder than they did or chose better study guides, but the fact that our education for our school was so weak made it harder for everyone. I'm not saying they should prepare us for the USMLE specifically, but if the physio, path, pharm, etc. courses were decent, our starting point for USMLE study wouldn't have been as bad as it was.

You have to plan on working in NA. You can work in Ireland for a while, but only Irish people are allowed to advance in their careers there. You'll quickly hit a dead end. I never worked in Ireland, but many of my friends did and some still do. Some stayed because they wanted to. Most stayed because they either failed to match or couldn't apply for the match until later since they failed their USMLE's. The other thing is most who did very well throughout school matched into positions far less competitive than US grads with similar numbers would have.

I don't think you can avoid ending up in my position. If your expectations for your career are low, then you'll still probably feel screwed, but you won't be as angry. The only way to totally avoid is is to not go to Ireland which is what I wish I had done. I was built up as an excellent choice, but that proved to be a lie.

That said, I had a lot of fun there and made lots of friends. If I were independently wealthy and didn't care about my career, I'd have been happy with my school. I'm not though, so I'm not.

 

[Slam Master J]

Hmmm. Which school did you go to, Student.ie?

Leorl, any comments? This is making Irish medschools seem like career-death for NA students that want to go back home afterward.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

I'm curious as to which school you were at, as well as what specialty you wanted and eventually ended up in. If you don't want to broadcast it here, you can PM me.

 

[deleted21609]

Hmmm. Which school did you go to, Student.ie?

Leorl, any comments? This is making Irish medschools seem like career-death for NA students that want to go back home afterward.

It's not career death, it's career gambling. You may want to go into one of those easier to get specialties or you may be the exception to the rule. That would be great. You don't find out until it's too late to change your career path though. That sounds more like gambling to me.

 

[Slam Master J]

Cool, thanks again.

So, which school in Ireland did you attend?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Lol, you didn't really answer either of our questions.

 

[deleted21609]

Lol, you didn't really answer either of our questions.

Lol, not true! I answered several of Slam Master J's questions.
"Would you mind giving us a bit of a refresher on your experience?
Are you a US student in Ireland?
What are you doing now that you are finished?
Are you suggesting that school in Ireland is useless if you plan on practicing in NA?"

 

[Slam Master J]

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and call bulls**t on all your comments unless you tell us what school you went to.

It should be a completely open subject, but as far as I know you don't even know the names of the schools over there.

 

[deleted21609]

Ok, I'm going to go ahead and call bulls**t on all your comments unless you tell us what school you went to.

It should be a completely open subject, but as far as I know you don't even know the names of the schools over there.

I'll decide how open I want to be. You can call it what you want. I think I know way to much about how it is there for my comments to be made up. Plus, I've been on here way too long to just be messing around. I'm obviously genuinely angry to have kept it up so long (since Jan 2003).
I'll answer your quiz though- RCSI, Trinity, UCD, UCC, UCG, though I never met anyone from UCG. Oops, I just narrowed it down. I think UCG may actually be the best one, but I guess that's a matter of opinion, to some degree at least.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

I really don't see why you refuse to tell us what school you went to and what specialty you wanted/matched. If you're being genuine (which I believe you are), wouldn't you want to try and help people avoid your experience?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Really cute puppy in the avatar btw.

 

[Slam Master J]

Yep, you're welcome to be as open as you like. But maybe you can enlighten us to why the name of your school is a sensitive subject for you?

Also, you seem to think you know about multiple schools, whereas your experience would be limited to only one. You say you didn't go to UCG, but you say you think it's the best. For a physician claiming to be working his/her residency in the states, you seem to have alot of free time to write vague answers to simple questions.

Suspect, Herr Student.ie, suspect.

 

[deleted21609]

I really don't see why you refuse to tell us what school you went to and what specialty you wanted/matched. If you're being genuine (which I believe you are), wouldn't you want to try and help people avoid your experience?

Well, it may be silly, but I'm trying to maintain some annonymity. Maybe telling my school wouldn't let my classmates on here know exactly who I am, but it wouldn't help. I don't think it would help any applicants anyway. You only get accepted to one school anyway, right? I'm in a relatively non-competitve specialty at a 'US News top 50' major university program. That's about as specific as I want to get. Top programs in non-competitve specialties are easier to get than low end programs in the most competitive specialties. That's why you shouldn't be too impressed with lists of great schools where Irish grads go without considering the specialty (and date admitted) too.

I suspect that UCG is the best because when we had guest lecturers from within Ireland, they tended to be UCG grads. A lot of our top faculty were also from UCG. That's how I recall it anyway.

About my time, I turn my computer on when I watch tv. Also, I'll go weeks or months without posting during busy rotations. You get weekends off in clinic months and Independence Day off at the VA. That's the last time I'll defend my status. Think what you want.

 

[Slam Master J]

Fair enough on the anonymity bit. I suppose it doesn't matter, but it isn't true that you get accepted to only one school. I know people who have been accepted to two. I'm trying to decided between two myself.

Still, the name of the school you go to does matter, and I don't think it would affect your anonymity. Call it my opinion, but it wouldn't. As you've said in an earlier post 'Maybe it's different in other schools.' That's why it's important for those reading this string to know which school you attended.

 

[johnny_blaze]

I'm just applying this year, so this won't really relavent to me for a while; however, a terrible combination of free time and curiosity leads me to wonder about something. I read somewhere that clinical rotations are closer to an observership in Ireland and the UK. Is this true? Or do medical students in their clinical years actually actively participate in patient care?

Don’t know about Ireland as I am finishing up my training in England, but I’m assuming the training is the same. Your clinical exposure varies depending on how much initiative you have. This is simply because there are enough doctors on a service in the U.K so they don’t really need you to do scut work for them. However, if you have initiative and take on-calls and stuff you can get a lot of US style experience. Our style may be different but doesn’t mean that you will make any less of a doctor. I think it’s quite obvious that you run the risk of not doing well on the USMLE as British schools are not training you for that but I don’t think that it will reflect how you practice (how often do you actually have to look at histology slides as a junior doctor??). When I did my elective in NA I was a bit unimpressed by the fact that students there couldn’t really do a good H&P as there was too much cutting of corners (this can happen if you have too much clinical responsibility while your still learning the basics of medicine). The simple fact is that if you have to present a case to a mean British prof, you better make sure you do it right…don’t think NA student have this problem as your average consultant there is a lot more mellow.
I did my elective in the end of my 3rd year on a busy surgical service and was able to function as a resident (and often had to) so I believe that U.K shouldn’t be sold short.

 

[Slam Master J]

Hey Johnny,

This is a very pre-emptive question, but how did you go about getting that 3rd Year Internship in the states? Did you have any prior connections there? If so, do you feel that it helped? Or is there a system for 3rd years to apply for internships?

Cheers

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Don’t know about Ireland as I am finishing up my training in England, but I’m assuming the training is the same. Your clinical exposure varies depending on how much initiative you have. This is simply because there are enough doctors on a service in the U.K so they don’t really need you to do scut work for them. However, if you have initiative and take on-calls and stuff you can get a lot of US style experience. Our style may be different but doesn’t mean that you will make any less of a doctor. I think it’s quite obvious that you run the risk of not doing well on the USMLE as British schools are not training you for that but I don’t think that it will reflect how you practice (how often do you actually have to look at histology slides as a junior doctor??). When I did my elective in NA I was a bit unimpressed by the fact that students there couldn’t really do a good H&P as there was too much cutting of corners (this can happen if you have too much clinical responsibility while your still learning the basics of medicine). The simple fact is that if you have to present a case to a mean British prof, you better make sure you do it right…don’t think NA student have this problem as your average consultant there is a lot more mellow.
I did my elective in the end of my 3rd year on a busy surgical service and was able to function as a resident (and often had to) so I believe that U.K shouldn’t be sold short.

The bolded thing is exactly what I figured. You can't just passively wait for everything to happen for you. It sounds like an environment in which I would do well. Thanks for the input Johnny.

 

[deleted21609]

The bolded thing is exactly what I figured. You can't just passively wait for everything to happen for you. It sounds like an environment in which I would do well. Thanks for the input Johnny.

Johnny_Blaze: What exactly did you do that makes you think you were functioning as a resident?

You think you can judge the other students' H&Ps? Were you with 3rd years who just started clinics (this is likely if you were there in the summer since they start clinics in July). Wow, after being on the wards for 2 years, you did better than those who were on them for 2 weeks! Score one for the UK!

Other people:
GETTING TO DO ELECTIVES IS NOT HARD OR IMPRESSIVE!

The active vs. passive learning stuff is brought up all the time. You're probably wrong if you think at the end of the day when everyone is going home, that you are going to review the notes, orders, labs, etc. for patients whose care you are not really involved in. Everyone thinks they'll have tons of initiative that'll make them get the most out of it. You forget that you'll really want to go home and read since it'll actually improve your grade, or you'll want to do something fun. More power to you if you stay at the hospital when you don't have to- No one does it though even if they thought they would. Actually, they do it, but only for a few weeks right before final med exams.

 

[Mr. McDuck]

Well, I've already done it numerous times. I work in an operating room as a staff first assistant. I've worked my share of 30- to 48-hour shifts, stayed at the hospital after I was allowed to go home in order to do stupid tasks that probably could have been done by someone else but taught me something. I stay late just about everyday even when I'm not on call. I read on my lunch break, on the way to and from work, and between cases when I get a chance.

All I meant by my statement was that I figured it was a matter of keeping up that initiative and really putting in the effort even when you don't want to, okay [/reallycheapwaytonotendasentencewithapreposition]?

BTW, I haven't met a med student that works from Friday morning until Sunday afternoon, and then returns Monday morning for another 10 hours. Thank god for frequent stops to Wawa on the way home.

 

[shetland]

Well, it may be silly, but I'm trying to maintain some annonymity.

Hey student.ie

You dont have to feel you have to defend yourself, its none of their business which school you went to.

Thanks for sharing your experience

 

[Slam Master J]

Yep, thanks for your perspective and wonderfully objective, well thoughtout criticisms of the entire Irish medical training system. All be it interpolated from your horrendous experience at one of five schools.

Here's my suggestion... it's never too late. Apply again to US med schools, I'm sure it's possible. Another 4 years out of your life is well worth avoiding another 60 of spreading bitterness on the internet.

 

[Slam Master J]

And Student.ie,

Why does my question to Johnny make you think that I percieve obtaining an internship hard or impressive? I'm simply curious about his experience, since I will eventually have to make such steps.

 

[Arb]

All opinions are welcome even if the experiences seem contrary to others'. There are other members you can ask as well. Two of them that I have corresponded with have finished residency and are CANADIANS!

Hey student.ie, a couple years ago I believe you said you were mainly familiar with the hospitals affiliated with UCC (I believe it was UCC...it was a long time ago), why are you not willing to be open with which school you attended like before? Did something happen with something you wrote on this board? It seems impossible to find out your identity especially if the year you graduated is not known but, it is your right.

 

[deleted21609]

And Student.ie,
Why does my question to Johnny make you think that I percieve obtaining an internship hard or impressive? I'm simply curious about his experience, since I will eventually have to make such steps.

Well, you wrote "how did you go about getting that 3rd Year Internship in the states? Did you have any prior connections there? If so, do you feel that it helped? Or is there a system for 3rd years to apply for internships?" which made me think you thought it was tough to get electives (not really internships). Since you thought connections might help, I though you had the impression that it is competitive. It's really not. All you have to do is apply early before they're full. Almost every program I looked at for electives would take foreign students. Just think about where you'd want to go and visit their website. Application steps are specific to your destination school, but it's easy. Cost varies though, so look into that too. Some Irish schools have partners in the States for electives, but these partnerships are unnecessary. You can go to most every non-partner school too.

I don't mean any offense with this, I just don't want anyone to confuse the ease of getting electives with the difficulty of getting residencies. You could do a neurosurgery elective at Hopkins no problem but...

 

[Slam Master J]

That's great, I hope it's as easy as you suggest.

 

[Slam Master J]

But hey, wouldn't an internship at say, the Mayo Clinic or Princeton be a bit more of a challenge? I find it hard to believe it's all just first-come, first-serve.

 

[deleted21609]

But hey, wouldn't an internship at say, the Mayo Clinic or Princeton be a bit more of a challenge? I find it hard to believe it's all just first-come, first-serve.

Well, Princeton is pretty much impossible since they don't have a med school.
In my experiece, getting an elective was completely about timing and not about prestige. Maybe someone else had a hard time getting electives despite applying early? I've never heard of that happening. I can only tell you what my experience was and about the experience of my friends' as I understand it.

 

[johnny_blaze]

Johnny_Blaze: What exactly did you do that makes you think you were functioning as a resident?

Whatever the junior resident had to do, I had to do. And the evaluation and recomendation i recieved confirms that i did the job well.…simple as that.

You think you can judge the other students' H&Ps? Were you with 3rd years who just started clinics (this is likely if you were there in the summer since they start clinics in July). Wow, after being on the wards for 2 years, you did better than those who were on them for 2 weeks! Score one for the UK!

Yes I can judge them as I have a right to an opinion, I may not be perfect but I know when I’m impressed or unimpressed. A lot of the students there have taken time out in the summer to get "ward experience" since year 1 and were taught clinical skills in year 1. the 3rd years that I am "judging" were not fresh into clinical medicine as you are making it seem.

All I was trying to say is that there are differences in our style of teaching compared to NA and there seems to be a lot of crying on the SDN from people who can’t do well on the USMLE with U.K training and I think it’s quite obvious why… its an American exam! Lets see how many NA grads can pass UK finals where we are mostly examined on clinical skills. If you cant even present a case properly the prof wont even bother asking you further questions, you’ll fail right there and then. We are trained to pass our exams not America’s.

 

[deleted21609]

There are a lot of excuses made about poor performance on US exams for FMGs. It is mostly ridiculous. Sure there is some technique to the exam that must be learned, but the most important factor is your knowlege of medicine. You treat TTP with plasmapheresis in the UK just like they do in the US. If you can't get that question right on a US exam, it's not because they didn't teach you about US exams, it's because they didn't teach you medicine.

The reason Irish grads do poorly on the USMLEs isn't that they "aren't trained for US exams." Irish exams require in depth knowledge about the most common diseases, so that's what you learn. You're only going to get a couple of essay questions, so you can get by only knowing about common things. The USMLE asks hundreds of questions which requires you to know about the uncommon stuff too. You didn't have to learn uncommon stuff for your coursework, so you're way behind when you start to prepare for the USMLE. Talking about how they don't intend to prepare you for the USMLE is a Red Herring. The real issue is the breadth of medical knowledge you gain.

Johnny_Blaze: I'm not saying that you're education in the UK isn't awesome. Maybe it is. I know very little about schools in the UK. I had a Scottish guy on one of my US rotations who was VERY good though. There were lots of students at my school in Ireland who were very good too, despite their school. Comparing yourself to fresh new third years isn't a fair comparison between the systems though. They had one course to give them a background in clinical skills, maybe a preceptorship after 1st year that let them mostly watch a family doc or something, and had just started their real clinical learning experience in 3rd year. You had done what, 2 years of wards? I should hope you'd think you were better than them.

 

[johnny_blaze]

Comparing yourself to fresh new third years isn't a fair comparison between the systems though. They had one course to give them a background in clinical skills, maybe a preceptorship after 1st year that let them mostly watch a family doc or something, and had just started their real clinical learning experience in 3rd year.

The whole point of why I posted on this thread was to highlight the differences between a hand-on and observational clinical training. You are essentially right in stating that the 3rd years were just starting their proper clinical attachments. MY point was that if they are just starting, they should focus on the basics without being bombarded with scut work (a benefit of an observational training) as it results in cutting corners and not doing things properly… and it shows. I’m not trying to say that U.K training is better than NA training or anything like that and I apologise if it seems this way.

Remember, I’m in England and docs here are very anal about tradition and doing things correctly, even if it’s inconvenient… so maybe I’m just being a snob about the whole thing.

 

[deleted21609]

I don't think they should focus on the basics to the exclusion of practical learning like we did in Ireland. Nobody does perfect H&Ps at first wherever they train. If US students can improve their H&Ps at the same time as they learn to function productively in the hospital, why shouldn't they? If you went and did an elective in May and saw how much those students had learned, you might start describing their system as 'doing things correctly'.

Tradition has it's place, but it can also be a barrier to improvement.

In the US it takes 7 years from the start of medical school to become an internal medicine attending using the hands-on method. How long does it take you to become a consultant using the observational method?

 

[Mr. McDuck]

So, there is a post on this forum talking about how NA citizens are basically screwed if they want to work in the UK. How does this translate to Ireland? Is it the same way?

 

[deleted21609]

So, there is a post on this forum talking about how NA citizens are basically screwed if they want to work in the UK. How does this translate to Ireland? Is it the same way?

Right now you can work in Ireland if you went to school there. Sooner or later that won't be possible since they're obliged to give preference to EU citizens over foreigners. It's just a question of how many spots they have available after all the EU applicants get jobs. My guess is that his will be low soon (see recent post from Spanish guy looking to work in Ireland), but you never know I guess. You probably shouldn't seek out an EU bride to get a work permit, but it may happen accidentaly. It has happened before.

 

[Slam Master J]

So... Student.ie, help me fully be clear on your opinion,

"I don't think they should focus on the basics to the exclusion of practical learning like we did in Ireland."

Your opinion is practical learning is totally excluded in Irish med schools?

"If you went and did an elective in May and saw how much those students had learned, you might start describing their system as 'doing things correctly'."

This statement seems to imply you consider the Irish system as 'doing things INcorrectly'. You really think that?

 

[johnny_blaze]

In the US it takes 7 years from the start of medical school to become an internal medicine attending using the hands-on method. How long does it take you to become a consultant using the observational method?

Can't give a definite answer, as there are many variables. med school here can range from 4-6 yrs. F1 and F2 training spots have replaced SHO's and there is a lot more flexability with training so people advance at different speeds. Also, in the U.K you sub specialize when you sit your fellowship exams. Ie. to be a vascular surgeon you just have to pass the FRCS (possibly with a viva in vascular surgery), you don’t have to be board certified in GS and then in vascular. Post grad training is quite different here which makes for a large discrepancy when making a "time to consultant" comparison.

 

[deleted21609]

.