PBL-Flinders style

[MD1088]

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Just to answer a question posted on the Sydney vs St George thread (which quickly became Australian racism in a bizarre twist). Our PBL groups meet twice a week for three or four hours per meeting. These meetings and the clinical skills rounds in the hospital for two or three hours once a week are the only mandatory attendence of Flinders PBL. There is another twenty or so hours, give or take, of lectures/labs/whatever. Some are outstanding, some make you shake your head in disbelief. Flindophile gave a good extensive outline of how PBL works in the above mentioned thread. You either love it or hate it. I am loud, highly motivated, controlling, and usually dominate my group. I love it. There are some who sit quietly, passively, expect to be taught medicine. They hate it. You learn medicine from now on by identifying what educators call "known unknowns". You have to know what you dont know, if that makes sense. People who are good at that not only survive here, they develop learning skills that in my opinion, provide a style of learning that makes them continue this process, as I said, forever. That, I think, was one reason PBL gained popularity. As for exams. None are oral. They are written. It takes some getting used to. It seems next to impossible to fail them so dont worry too much. As for clinical exams, they are different and people do fail them. There seems to be a direct correlation between how much time folks spend on the wards practicing their skills INDEPENDENTLY, and the score they get on these clinical exams - OSCE's (Objective Structured Clinical Exams) they are officially called. Here is my take. The USMLE is easy to study for. There is alot there to learn but it laid out pretty well in many formats (First Aid, Step Up, etc). Flinders pushes the clinical component harder than the basic science knowledge in terms of the assessments you get. I figure I am getting as good a clinical education as I could anywhere in the world, while being allowed enough of my own time to prepare for the USMLE. Let me know if you want any more info.

 

[tl47]

Thanks for the post on Flinders and PBL.

Hmm... since you already know that you dominate *discussions*... perhaps you should let others have a go... (i.e. play facilitator instead of dictator 🙂 ).

Anyway, I guess I'm somewhat psyched up again. Flinders all the way! Thanks again for sharing your experiences.

 

[pitman]

Originally posted by MD1088
...You learn medicine from now on by identifying what educators call "known unknowns". You have to know what you dont know, if that makes sense.

Reminds me of one of the wittier assertions made by a fellow empiricist --

"There are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns,
that is to say there are things we now know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns -
things we do not know we don't know.

"So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns.

"And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns.

"...There is another way to phrase that,
and that is that the absence of evidence
is not evidence of absence.

"...Absolute proof cannot be a precondition for action."

-Donald Rumsfeld, 12-Feb-02
(and no, don't even try to infer my politics...)

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-Pitman

 

[Winged Scapula]

Originally posted by doctor Moo
Thanks MD1088. I have heard that comment from several people but wonder exactly how Flinders students learn clinical medicine. Is it by observation or by apprenticeship (which is becoming rarer in the US), or other? I know you have better access to the hospital but do you think you get the same LEVEL of hospital responsibility as in the US, greater, or less? I'm talking about first three years.

Thanks, Moo

I know you didn't ask me...but IMHO you have less patient contact in the clinical years (ie, years 3 and 4) because the expectations are less at Aussie schools. However, we are trying to be kinder to our medical students and eliminating pre-rounding on some services as well, which reduces contact hours.

Depending on the school, however, you may have more contact hours during the first two years. Obviously you can do the bare minimum required or see more patients. Some students have abused the emergency room priviledge and for awhile when I was there students were not allowed to see patients independently in the ER unless on a rotation there or otherwise approved.

I think the level of responsibility is less in Oz, but you can always volunteer to do more - ie, ask if YOU can insert the IVs, place the Foley, draw the labs, see as many patients in clinic or the ER as you can...go above and beyond the expectations and you'll do fine. I found I compared favorably to US students when I did my 4th year rotations clinically, but less so with basic science knowledge.