Naked Truth Blog » Medical Students

The 2011 Surgery Journal Prize

debs — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 12:06:19 +0000

Surgery presents… The launch of the 2011 Surgery Journal Prize

You could win £500 worth of books and journal subscriptions plus the chance to have your work published!

The journal Surgery announces the launch of the 2011 Surgery Journal Prize and invites papers on the topic of: ‘The impact of subspecialisation on training and the provision of emergency surgical services’

Submissions are open to all medical undergraduate students within UK medical schools. The paper must be no longer than 3000 words and can contain supporting graphics and data if required. The papers will be judged by a panel of three assessors, chosen from the Editorial Board of the journal Surgery. Their decision
is final. The submission deadline is 31st March 2011.

Please visit www.surgeryjournal.co.uk for more information and to enter.

The winner will receive £500 worth of books and journal subscriptions from ElsevierHealth.co.uk. The winning entry will be published in Surgery, so this is an ideal opportunity to add a published article to your portfolio. PLUS the winner will be invited to a presentation by the Editorial Board’s judging panel later in the year. There will also be two runners-up prizes: £250 worth of books and journal subscriptions from ElsevierHealth.co.uk.

Good luck!

Open Source Epidemiological Statistics

Dom — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 10:21:50 +0000

The phrase ‘evidence-based medicine’ is well known to any medical student. But how do we make meaningful evidence from data? Good statistics. Thankfully the days have moved on from trying to do it all with pencil and paper, put some statistical packages seem almost as cumbersome to use. OpenEpi has absolutely nothing to do with adrenaline and everything to do with epidemiology. Taking its philosophical cues from the Open Source movement and websites like SourceForge, the programme is available to run online or download. It is not as functional as any of the major software packages such as SPSS – whose inventor is now trying to push politics forward using statistics – but it is useful as a first look at data. It’s use is probably best for preliminary evidence. Grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University made development possible. It selflessly includes links to its competitors, including StatPages.org. Since Youtube took off everyone is a film-maker, since blogging everyone is a writer, since OpenEpi will everyone become a statistician? Probably not, but it may help.

A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor

Dom — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:35:44 +0000

Reading A Cartoon Guide to Becoming a Doctor is no substitute for actually going to medical school but may provide some tongue-in-cheek towards getting through once you are there. This cartoon is written by an anonymous medical student, now doctor, about the trials and tribulations of rotations, examinations and personal life, occasionally featuring guest submissions. The byline claims that that it is ‘Lessons on the medical training process from somebody with absolutely no artistic talent’ which is a little unfair. The drawing is basic but totally coherent. The writing is quite US-orientated, but it translates quite well transatlantically once you work out what a ‘resident’ doesn’t just mean someone who lives somewhere. Recent highlights include a skeleton draft of a personal statement for applying to medical school which probably really isn’t that helpful. Have a look at the cartoon here, or if you fancy adding your own submission, email the author here.

Medical career map

Dom — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:35:15 +0000

Postgraduate medical training has transformed enormously in the last 5 years. New medical graduates may no longer be famililar with what the abbreviation PRHO stands for, but are more familiar with terms such as LTFTT. The MMC (Modernising Medical Careers) project has changed things to an astonishing degree. Do you understand FTSTA? LAT? Fortunately, Wales Deanery have produced an interactive guide to medical training which spells things out one stage at a time. Now careers can be as easy as GP ST1-3. Check out the guide here.

Professional values in action

Dom — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 10:34:46 +0000

Following their previous interactive series of ethics dilemmas online for doctors, the GMC have released a sequel (or prequel?) for medical students. They are designed for students who have read some of the GMC’s guidance on ethical issues in care and feel confident applying these principles to real-life situations. On the interactive site it is possible to role-play as two different students, one of whom is on a hospital placement and one of whom is placed in General Practice. Both come across difficult situations. There are also two interactive case studies in which the main protagonist is a tutor who is mentoring students who are having problems while studying a medical school. There are serious of ‘Spot the Mistake’ questions, and a few quiz questions. Try the cases online here.

Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine

Dom — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:42:57 +0000

I don’t think that Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine is going to get its own faculty, let alone its own Royal College any time soon, but that’s no reason to not assess it. In fact, libel reform advocates Sense About Science are beginning to issue their own diplomas in Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine. This is naturally unconcerned with facts or evidence or whether the treatments actually work or not, and simply whether the old wives’s say so. The delineation of evidence-based medicine from argument from authority is illustrated well in this instance.

The new Voice of Young Science School of Old Wives’ Medicine will hit the streets of London on 8th September to start providing diplomas for people to practice Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine, registering members of the public who can correctly answer questions about traditional cures and advice.

Find out if you can become an Old Wives’ Medicine practitioner outside the Department of Health on Whitehall on Wednesday 8th September from 11.30 where young scientists and medics will be launching the scheme.

More Medicine on Twitter

Dom — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:54:43 +0000

Elsevier News now has a presence of Twitter. It would be possible to autotweet every single issue of a journal or even every article individually, but it would not be possible to keep up with the feed in a meaningful way. It is doubtful that this would really help any clinician or research in either actively searching for evidence or keeping up to date in their practice. Instead, a more focussed view is taken. There hasn’t yet been much more interest in Twitter from Big Pharma. This may change in the future. Health Business Blog wrote one post a few months ago, and another shortly afterwards following progress. The limitation with microblogging’s focus on Twitter remains that it is a centralised service vulnerable to downtime due to too much traffic or potential cyber attacks. There is not yet any great solution, although Backupify is available to backup tweets and Google has rolled up its improved Twitter search this week.

Mnemocine

Dom — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:38:51 +0000

Mnemonics are at the heart of medical education. Indeed, several books about them have been published. Mnemocine is a new online repository, its name being a portmanteau of mnemonic and medicine. Some of the are quite biochemically based and outside the remit of some undergraduate medical courses. One good one is the muscles innervated by the radial nerve being BEST:

- Brachioradialis

- Extensors of the forearm

- Supinator

- Triceps brachii

UKFPO error 2010

Dom — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:38:32 +0000

North-East Thames is a competitive Foundation School and a system error may have directly affected the applications of 34 students. Six of these students may be in an entirely different foundation school due to their not receiving sufficient points. It is possible that this may have a knock-on effect for other students who may be displaced from their first choice of North-East Thames to a different Foundation School. UKFPO have been impressively quick in recognising and responding to the problem.

SENT ON BEHALF OF PROFESSOR DEREK GALLEN

This email has been sent to: Postgraduate Deans, Foundation School Directors, Foundation School Managers, Rules Group Members, Heads of Medical Schools, Medical Schools Council, UKFPO, Medical Students Board, and BMA Medical Students Committee

For information please find below the statement sent to the BMA news regarding the recent quartile score administrative error which affected a small number of students from Barts and the London Medical School.

North East Thames Foundation School Apologises for

Foundation Programme 2010 Recruitment Administrative Error

Applicants to the Foundation Programme 2010 were able to log into their online accounts on Friday, 19 February to see a breakdown of their application scores. A small proportion of students from Barts and the London Medical School were surprised to find that the academic quartile scores provided to them by Barts were different from those they saw on the online application system.

Investigations at the weekend and on Monday revealed that there were process and administration issues at both Barts and the London Medical School and North East Thames Foundation School (NETFS).

Before potential applicants to the Foundation Programme can enrol online, medical schools must provide details of eligible students to their local foundation school by a set deadline in order for them to be pre-loaded onto the system. This year, Barts and the London were unable to provide their quartile rankings by the deadline because some results for students re-sitting exams were only available after this deadline. In order to ensure that their students could enrol at the same time as all other students, all Barts students were uploaded into the application system with a provisional score of 34, the lowest quartile ranking, with an agreement they would be amended when the final data came through from the medical school.

When the medical school sent through the final scores on a spreadsheet, administrative staff at the North East Thames Foundation School input the new scores, with the exception of one page of the spreadsheet which had been missed in error. The result is that 34 students whose academic quartile scores were on the missing spreadsheet page are lower than they should have been. The scores of six of these students, who didn’t get into their first choice foundation school, will be reviewed and NETFS will work with other foundation schools to place these doctors in the school they should have been allocated to as vacancies arise from withdrawals and finals fails.

All of those students affected have been contacted by NETFS and informed of the steps being taken to ensure they receive the help and support they need.

Professor Derek Gallen, National Director of the UK Foundation Programme Office, who runs the national Foundation Programme recruitment process on behalf of the four UK health departments said,

“As soon as our student advisors contacted us on Saturday, we began looking into score discrepancies as a matter of urgency with the online hosts, NETFS and Barts and the London. The UKFPO has asked that all foundation schools cooperate with NETFS to help those affected by this error. Of the 28 students that got into their first choice school, but with a lower programme allocation than they may have otherwise received; the UKFPO has asked that foundation schools give these students preferential allocations for their F2 year.”

Dr Michael Glynn, Foundation School Director for NETFS, said:

“We apologise unreservedly for this error. This has not been an error made by the UKFPO, or by the online application system. It was human error, plain and simple, between the medical school and local foundation school. This does not excuse it, certainly, and NEFTS will do everything it can to help those students affected. We are also working with Barts and the London to ensure this does not happen again.

Regards,

Professor Derek Gallen

National Director

UK Foundation Programme Office

The contribution of medical students to services in pandemic flu

Dom — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:17:48 +0000

The Department of Health has released a guide to how medical students can help in the event of pandemic flu. It’s predominantly relevant with final year medics. There’s probably scope for expansion to other potential disasters, although this guidance applies explicitly to this particular disaster.

Examples of clinical activity that may be appropriate for a final year medical student to undertake include

• Clerking of patients in emergency or ward settings

• Ordering investigations under supervision

• Getting the results of investigations

• Venepuncture

• IV cannulation

• 12-lead ecg

• urinary catherisation

• arterial blood gases

• setting up an IV infusion

• manual handling, after specific training

These skills listed are taken from Tomorrow’s Doctors where it is stated what practical skills FY1s must be able to perform. The document may also set a precedent in stating that medical students should be paid a wage for work done outside of studying. Medical students will not be forced into doing this work, and must opt in to do it. They will be provided with immunisations. Many clinical medical students have already immunised as a matter of Trust policy around the country. It is unclear whether final year medical students or retired doctors will be called first if there insufficient doctors. It would make sense for the Department of Health to have policy on this. It seems unlikely that swine flu will overwhelm the NHS this winter, but it’s good to be prepared for the future. The document can be found here.