All 4 entries tagged Medicine

Case based learning

Writing about web page http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/med/study/ugr/

I cannot believe how fast first year has gone. It does not seem that long ago that I received my confirmation of getting in and was deciding on living arrangements, what colour stethoscope I should go for and where was the best place to get scrubs for our biggest fresher’s night! But what a year it has been! It has been challenging and difficult but I have also really enjoyed it. I didn’t know what to expect when we started as with the new course structure there was only so much the older years could tell us. I also wasn’t sure of how I would find case based learning (or CBL as it’s known), but I have actually been surprised at how good it has been!

The course is structured so that you have 3 CBL sessions a week – the CBL week starts on a Thursday, just to confuse matters, but that gives you the whole weekend to do any work you may have been set! Each week therefore has its own case – in the first session you are given a brief overview of the patient’s presenting complaint and a few details like their age. You then gradually build upon this information over the week, either in the sessions or at home. In each session you get given more information as the facilitator thinks you are ready for it – for example, once you have decided that your patient probably needs an MRI you get the results!

Most of the work though is done through discussion with your group. Each week we assign a chair and a scribe – and over the course of a block everyone gets a turn at something. The scribe records the discussion and highlights any key information, and the chair helps to keep everyone on track and ensures we move on when we’ve exhausted a topic! Normally ‘homework’ is assigned to everyone at the end of the first session which we then feed back to one another at the start of the second session. This has been a really useful way of covering lots of information and finding the important parts without you personally having to spend all your time doing so!

CBL wouldn’t be so effective if we didn’t all work as a team. I am lucky to get on well with all the members in my group, but that doesn’t mean we don’t sometimes have our squabbles! At the start of the year we, like most groups, we had a few lessons to learn and issues to iron out, but once they all got sorted we have all worked really well together. Spending time together outside of CBL has also been great fun, and a good way to build on relationships. I would not have enjoyed the year half so much if it hadn’t been for my CBL group. I always knew they were there for help and support when I was having a rubbish week or had a revision problem.

Not everyone will find best friends in their CBL groups, but so long as you can work together and help each other the year will be so much better. It’s common knowledge that not everyone gets on with everyone but being able to work alongside others from all backgrounds is so important for this career, and therefore it’s a good way to get the practice in early!

Sarah Hill : 15 Aug 2014 14:58 |  Tags: Case-Based Learning Mbchb Medicine Rachel Student Warwick |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Greetings from Rachel

Hey! My name is Rachel and I am currently a first year here at Warwick, although it is very rapidly coming to an end! This is my first blog so let me tell you a bit about myself and what I did before coming to Warwick.

My first degree was Medical Science at Birmingham. I graduated last July and came straight to study Medicine afterwards. I have always wanted to do Medicine and cannot believe I am finally doing it! I had applied straight from college but unfortunately did not make my offer. Instead of doing resits I decided to look at other degree options and do the ‘long-route’ in! I have no regrets with that choice and would not change anything. I really loved my time in Birmingham and my course. My degree has laid a brilliant foundation for starting here at Warwick, I may not remember a lot of what I learnt but at least not all of it is completely new and scary!

I chose Warwick as I liked the idea of the course only being for graduates, and therefore you aren’t just a handful of students being thrown in with loads of undergraduate students! I also liked the proximity to Birmingham - only 25 minutes on the train! The course structure similarly interested me, especially the anatomy teaching. Having access every week to the plastinated specimens has definitely helped me – anatomy is not my strong point!

I love travelling and during my time at Birmingham I had the opportunity to visit both Kenya and Ghana. I organised the trip to Kenya myself and joined up with people from across the world. I spent time in a special needs school, nursery and health clinic. It was a really eye-opening trip and made me realise how I have definitely taken for granted my access to education and health care. There were times when you wouldn’t see a child in nursery or school for a few weeks as their parents had run out of money, or they would be sent in but with no food or drink for the whole day. Spending time in the health clinic was a fantastic experience but challenging. I witnessed old men crying in agony when their wounds of over 10 years were being dressed, people coming in with a ‘cough’ and getting given antibiotics without any investigation – a stethoscope was not in sight and they definitely were not worrying about antibiotic resistance!

My trip to Ghana was with Global Medical Brigades and I went with other students from Birmingham (mostly medics!). We set up a health clinic in a community where their closest health centre was hours away. We raised money so that we could bring out suitcases full of medication and supplies, and so that we could pay for doctors to come with us. We had a triage, consultation and pharmacy section, and were lucky enough to have both a dentist and gynaecologist so we could have specialist areas. We also got to spend a lot of time doing public health talks and demonstrations. Again, it was a really rewarding experience.

During the holidays I work at a special needs school and at a respite centre for special needs children. I love working with the children and really miss them when I am away! I think this is where my interest in paediatrics has stemmed from, and therefore since starting at Warwick I have helped at Teddy Bear Hospital and taken part in Bedside Play. I am also now a member of the paediatric society committee!

Anyway, I will stop talking about myself now and look forward to writing again soon!

Rachel :)

: 21 May 2014 11:28 |  Tags: Mbchb Medicine Rachel Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Calm before the Storm

So we’re back at uni today after a 5 week long “holiday” and everyone seems to be refreshed, relaxed and surprisingly quite positive considering we’re now in our last few weeks of teaching before the end of Phase I exams. Most of us have very few stories to tell of the exciting things we have been up to over the Easter break and indeed a lot of people have stayed around to use the library or MTC whilst revising. My own story of weeks of revision interspersed with a few trips to Tesco and a couple of appointments with Occupational Health haven’t exactly had my friends or housemates rage with jealousy, though a couple of lucky people have been travelling in some capacity whether to America, Europe or back home for some of the international students.

 We’re all keen to get cracking with Block 5 - Reproduction and Child Development, though the thought of having loads of new stuff to learn just before exams is pretty scary. We were also told today that the decision has been made for us to stay in the same small groups until the end of Phase II. This will mean that half of our time at medical school will have been spent with the same 8-10 people. In my last blog I mentioned how important it is to make friends and take care when choosing your housemates because you’ll be spending a lot of time together. Unfortunately, you can’t choose your group. At Warwick we do a lot of group based work, including CBL cases and general “groupwork” sessions, and a lot of groups schedule extra sessions to help each other cover particularly challenging concepts or for revision. It’s so obvious but it really is important that you can work well together. So much of your time is invested in group learning and you really will get out of it what you put in. I love my CBL group and, fortunately, I think they’re all a wonderful group of people and I like to think that actually we are really good friends. Your group will help you through these tough first years where actually your base of knowledge, at least in the beginning, is really quite limited. For all the studying you’ve done previously, you’ll probably find that actually you don’t know much about the topics you’re going to cover, but why would you? It really is a case of 9 minds are better than 1 and brainstorming will help you to find those tiny gems of knowledge you do have, whether from your past experiences or from watching Holby City and House.

 In every group, people tend to fill different types of role and it is quite useful to think about what sort of person you are and how you tend to communicate. Are you a vocal member of the group and likely to lead the session and take control? Would you prefer to be a bit quieter and let others take charge, contributing when you feel confident that you know what you’re talking about? The key to good group work is to maintaining flow and focus in a session, ensuring that all group members contribute and keep up, and to learn to be flexible and accommodating when it comes to each other’s learning styles. If you haven’t already, when you arrive at medical school you’ll begin to think about the different styles of learning and hopefully identify in a quite general way, the sort of learner you are. Characteristics include visual or verbal, sensing or intuitive, active or reflective and sequential or global and in your group there will be people with all kinds of combinations. It’s important, not only for group work but your own learning, to know your learning style, know what kind of person/personality you are and to own it. Recognising your own strengths and weaknesses will help you to become more mindful of others, appreciative of their skills and to become more flexible and adaptable when it comes to team work. We’re going to have a lifetime of being part of a huge multidisciplinary team and the time to learn how to work effectively as such is now.

 So when you get here and you hesitantly go to meet your group on the first day, look around and think about where you fit in, and how much you’re going to achieve together over the next two years. Those 8 people will help you through thick and thin and whether you like them or not, you’re going to have to work together to reach your end goal. Hopefully…..probably, you’ll be as fortunate as I am and by the end of Phase II, if not before, you’ll have 8 really good friends.

 Now back to chatting about all those shopping trips and to enjoy the buzz of the MTC. I’m sure this atmosphere will pass by the end of the week though, and the computer room will return to its usual silence, except for that incessant tapping of keys!

See you soon,

 Amy

: 23 Apr 2014 09:37 |  Tags: Amy Group Work Mbchb Medicine Student Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Meeting Patients (Part 2)

In my last blog I told you a bit about how much fun I was having speak to, and examining patients on the ward. I also wrote about how good my clinical tutor is and how nice he had been to us.

This week, while we were making our way round the wards, all together for the last time, a junior doctor stopped my clinical tutor to tell him that there was a lady on the ward with a really interesting heart murmur and that he should take us to go an have a listen. The junior doctor also wasn't quite sure what the murmur was so wanted our clinical tutor to confirm the diagnosis. Anyway, my tutor approached the patient and asked her if it would be OK for us to have a listen to her heart. Since he had recently explained heart sounds to me for the 16th time this term, he said I should listen because he was sure I'd get it.

I approached the patient and asked politely if I could have a listen to her heart and would she mind if I reached through her nightwear to do so. I think for a first year, this bit is always so embarrassing, even though there really isn't anything to be embarrassed about. I noticed she didn't have any underwear on, so asked if it was OK to just place my stethoscope under her breast. Of course she said it was fine, not giving it a second thought while I stood there awkwardly trying to co-ordinate lifting, whilst trying to put my stethoscope in place, whilst going slightly red and causing a fuss over nothing.

I managed to maintain some of the patient’s dignity when the junior doctor came in and said that this was not the patient that we were meant to be listening to, and it was in fact the patient in the bed opposite. My clinical tutor just made me stop what I was doing and I sheepishly apologised to the patient for the trauma she'd just experienced - (don't worry, she actually wasn't harmed during the process of my poor cardiovascular examination). We tottered off to the other patients’ bed quickly before the whole room noticed- the curtains are soundproofed too, right? I made sure I didn't go first this time, but on the plus side I did manage to get it right for a change. I blame my clinical tutor :-)

We're fast approaching the Easter break now which means one thing...... exams are just around the corner. Panic is setting in all around. It seems so ridiculous, being nervous about exams when there is still quite a long period of time between now and then, but here we are, five months into our medical degrees and it has flown by!

We have five blocks of learning in our first year, and at the end of each block we have a formative assessment, to help us identify how we have got on with the block and hopefully point us in the direction of what we need to revisit before the summative at the end of year. Unfortunately, every time I do a formative, it just seems to highlight that I need to revisit absolutely everything and makes me feel a bit more nervous about the summer. Anyway, we have five nice, long, revision filled weeks to buckle down before the last block. I'll have to make sure I have time to enjoy at least one Easter egg though.

See you soon

Amy

: 27 Mar 2014 10:10 |  Tags: Amy Examination Mbchb Medicine Patients Stethoscope Tutor Warwick Wms |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem