Urggh!!! Advice

[drbruce]

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Hi
Just got the Kaplan lecture notes in the post and I have totally freaked myself out looking at the amount of work that I have to cover!

I'm a UK FMG, still in my second year ( not technically a graduate yet!)

Do I have to know the Kaplan Lecture series inside out? There just seems to much, thousands of pages of detailed info. Can somebody learn of all this in two years? I have heard that learning just the First Aid book will put me in good stead.

 

[surprisedgirl]

DO NOT PANIC!!!!!! It helps that you are still in school because the material is all very fresh for you. Kaplan GENERALLY aims those books/dvds towards foreign grads who have been OUT OF school for a while. I think that those books are great for things you need clarification on, but I'd recommend some shorter books like High Yield ones which you ca then annotate into FA (for clarification). THEN you can read FA and understand more of it, and yes FA is very helpful, prob not enough all by itself.

 

[drbruce]

Thanks for advice. Looking at the US exams, I am starting to feel that the first two years in a British medical school is hopeless at preparing us for the clinical years. The British system is not centralised enough, every medical school is allowed to set their own exams, under the watchful eye of the medical educational government body. Obviously this means that we do not all sit the same exam. Of course this is fairly normal practice for degree subjects and medicine is no exception, except that our shift towards problem based learning, where our learning objectives for the semester are extracted from a series of clinical case studies, one for each week, has created significant gaps in our core scientific knowledge.

It is such a stupid system that lets their students define their own curriculmn in the belief that it will match up with what the examiners have in mind for us based on a few ques in a clinical case. Speaking from experience, it doesn't and I wish they would realise that! Looking through the questions in the Qbook, I cannot answer any of them and neither can my bright med school friends. The fact that our US counterparts are so far ahead of us in the first two years is embarrassing and proof that my concerns are perfectly legitimate. Furthermore, since the pointers (ques in the case study) are fairly weak in respect to defining the extent of knowledge that is required to complete a learning objective, many of us spend wasted hours reviewing books like Guytons which is very detailed and certainly not that clinically relevant in many parts.

Things do tend to sort themselves out during the clinical years (years 3 to 5) Regardless of whether things get better, wasting the first two years of medical school is still a travesty and wouldn't happen if the curriculmn was set by the government and we knew what to revise.

Oh well that is enough moaning, its late and I'm tired.

 

[rice_boy]

Hey...

I feel like i was looking into the mirror... except I'm an australian FMG, in 5th year (of a 6 year course). And considering I have just started preparing for step1, i believe i'm in a pretty tough situation...

Many aspects of the aussie course are modelled onthe british system, with elements also taken from the Americas. Unfortunately, we seemed to have taken out everything that was standard medical learning (anatomy, pathology, biochemistry) and replaced it with this new-age grossly empathetic syllabus...

I wonder how long it will take just to go through Biochemistry, given we had only a semester covering some of the basic pathways back in 2nd year... haha

 

[leorl]

hey now dr bruce, don't say that. You're just feeling discouraged because the way you learn it isn't the way the USMLE wants it. Ask the US students to take the PLAB and they'd find themselves in the same situation that you find yourself in. Your system obviously suits the UK, just like the Aussie system suits the Aussies (although I have heard some rather funny things happening there). I wish that there could be one universal exam though, it would make everything much simpler.

 

[drbruce]

I disagree, the UK system is flawed. Learning style is not really the issue in this case. We should be able to answer the USMLE questions by the end of the second year. Our knowledge just doesn't match up with what is required on the exam. For instance, I have had only one lecture on pathology and have done absolutely no biochemistry. Shocking, isn't it! Nice boy is right, this new age syllabus is a joke and I must apologise to all Australians on behalf of my country for exporting such a hopefully inadequate system to their country. I can only suspect that it has something to do with beating us in Rugby.

And American students shouldn't have any trouble with the PLAB exam. The questions are mostly clinical and very similar in style to your USMLE step 2 and 3.

 

[Scottish Chap]

I disagree, the UK system is flawed. Learning style is not really the issue in this case. We should be able to answer the USMLE questions by the end of the second year. Our knowledge just doesn't match up with what is required on the exam. For instance, I have had only one lecture on pathology and have done absolutely no biochemistry. Shocking, isn't it! Nice boy is right, this new age syllabus is a joke and I must apologise to all Australians on behalf of my country for exporting such a hopefully inadequate system to their country. I can only suspect that it has something to do with beating us in Rugby.

And American students shouldn't have any trouble with the PLAB exam. The questions are mostly clinical and very similar in style to your USMLE step 2 and 3.

At least your degree is practically free of charge. 👍 Seriously, though, take one day at a time and don't think about taking step 1 until you're finished with year 3 of your medical degree - at which point you will have studied all of the basic sciences in the U.K. Kaplan is good and the Question Bank is even more valuable. Plenty of British graduates have taken the USMLE successfully and you'll be no different.

 

[drbruce]

Well, I won't call it free as such.... about $60,000 debt. But I'd figure I just change my name and skip the country. Apparently if you don't return for 14 years the debt gets written off. 🙂

I will certainly be taking my time. At first I thought I will take the exam next summer but after seeing how much I have left to study decided against that
strategy and will shoot for the end of the third year instead.

 

[rice_boy]

When do most FMG's finish Steps 1+2? Or, more importantly, how many years after graduation do most FMGs actually enter the States and begin residency?

 

[felicia2001uk]

AVERAGE 15 TO 25 YEARS BUT NOWADAYS PEOPLE ARE LEAVING FROM ASIA TO USA,RATHER THAN GOING TO UK...UK HAD SHUT ITS DOORS.GREAT AMERICA IS ACCEPTING ALL FMGS.GOD BLESS AMERICA.👍

 

[drbruce]

I wouldn't say that exactly. The doors are still pretty much open for foreign doctors wishing to work in the Uk. But it has become harder for them to get the top jobs. But most are happy with being general practioners so I don't think many complain about the predicament.

For those who don't know, GPs here do extremely well for themselves and probably earn more than most specialists (without private practices). Last I heard, GPs were earning, on average, a $180,0000 dollars a year with a 1/3 of all practioners earning considerably more. The day of the consultant is over, GPs will walk the earth.

 

[Scottish Chap]

As of this year, it has become much more difficult for foreign-trained physicians to practice in the U.K. Up-to-date info. is available at the following website:
http://www.mmc.nhs.uk/pages/careers/overseas-doctors

 

[felicia2001uk]

I totally disagree .You need to mingle with IMGS and listen to their stories.Everyone has a story to tell.The system sucks.

 

[felicia2001uk]

tHERE ARE RUMORS..ABOUT CLOSING DOWN HOSPITALS AND GETTING RID OF STAFF.AFFECTS EVERYONE.DR BRUCE,YOU NEED TO GET REAL FACTS.MANY FOREIGN DOCTORS ARE UNEMPLOYED AND CANNOT EVEN GET LOCUM JOBS..DOCTORS ARE SWITCHING TO NURSING ,JUST TO GET THROUGH TO USA GREEN CARD.
CANADA AND BRITAIN JUST TOO HARSH FOR FORIEGN GRADUATES REGARDLESS OF CITIZENSHIP.
GOD BLESS AMERICA...THE DOCTORS ARE COMING.👍

 

[felicia2001uk]

Yes,General practitioners make a lot of money especially if doing out of hours duties...where you get minimum seventy-five pounds per hour.you work from 6pm to 8am...mostly sleeping at home.
Well,the unfortunate thing is that a lot of the general practitioners are crap...imagine a doctor earning two hundred thousand pounds per annum before tax....that is a lot of money...that is why the NHS is over two billion pounds in debt.
The british government is going to reduce general practitioners salary.
Good,you are joining the crowd to move to USA.👍

 

[drbruce]

I'm moving to America because my family live there, not because of the problems with the NHS. The government will eventually reduce the salaries of GPs but not yet, the boost in salaries only came recently, within the last few years if memory serves me right, and I can't see them acting so soon to reverse the change.

I don't think anybody knows the facts. A few bad personal accounts is certainly not an indictment of our system. I think the system is getting fairer in many respects. In one of our national newspaper, a recent article reported that graduates from British medical schools were having a hard time getting SHO jobs because of the large influx of foreign doctors. Some were even forced to move to rural areas where there is a shortage of trained professionals in order to find work. This limits them in their chosen specialities. So if the British government is clamping down on immigration of medical professionals this news is certainly going to please many UK medical students who are in the dubious position of questioning their prospects in a field which was always considered being very secure.