We are very excited at Naked Towers that the 7th edition of Kumar & Clark’s Clinical Medicine hit the shops this week! To celebrate we not only had a book launch at Foyles bookshop Charring Cross Road but we also got a couple of Medical students that we know: David & Lucy to come and interview the renowned K & C. The interview was filmed, so watch this space for clips very soon as they talk about why they decided to write the book initially and all manner of subjects ranging from women in medicine to what would be their preference over House, ER and casualty. Anyway I thought that I would wet your appetite with a couple of pictures of both events.

PS: Keep your eyes peeled for a new page on the site devoted to what you think of K&C… coming very soon

The National Union of Students has seemingly abandoned its Utopian policy of fighting for no tuition fees in order to concentrate on the forthcoming threat of the cap being completely. This could lead to fees going up from £3000 per year to £7000 per year or even higher. Louise McMenemy has eloquently spelt out the British Medical Association’s view on this in the Guardian, concentrating on the negative effect this will have on social mobility. Unusually, it doesn’t touch on the interesting issue of the different funding systems in place within the United Kingdom. For example, students domiciled in Scotland will not pay tuition fees for going to a University in Scotland. Intuitively, this would seem to be a great possibly a great move for widening access. It remains a hypothesis though, as I’m not aware of any good quality research that’s been done into the subject. 

Link

Tomorrow night is our half way ball. It’s official, we’re halfway through the course now. 

This scares me. A lot.

After tomorrow night we’re past the point of no return. I hope to get exceedingly drunken and celebrate it.

I’ve had one of those mornings we all have i suppose. just drove 40 miles through rush hour to attend the neuro reg on the ward for teaching. my placement partner and i turn up to find a message to bleep the reg…no probs, i can blog therefore i can bleep.

“hi its your med students for teaching”

“oh I’m really busy..call my the other rag on bleep ***”

bleep 2nd reg…..yes you guessed it…no answer. bleep again…..nope not wanted.

ask the consultants secretary (who is God) and she bleeps the final reg…..yep definitely not wanted….we can go home!!!!!!

Like that was what i wanted. i joined medical school to drive to a place that does not want me…to bleep a reg who does not need me…..to then drive home to read my book.

(we did go and see two new neuro patients on AMU…but that was using initiative…which we are not qualified to use yet)

Im not sarcastic really…ohh yes i am

Jay

Malta has announced that they will adopt the system run by the United Kingdom Foundation Programme Office for providing newly graduated doctors with . Dr Joe Cassar, the Parliamentary Undersecretary for Health in Malta, has described UKFPO as the “gold standard for medical training in Europe.” In the UK, RemedyUK persuaded 1600 doctors to write to the General Medical Council asking for the architects of Modernising Medical Careers to be brought to account. Problems encountered included applicants personal information including sexual orientation being made available unpassword-protected online.

There are reasons for UKFPO being keen to adopt Malta beyond aiming to provide a fair and transparent process for junior doctors. It is illegal under European law to discriminate against people applying for jobs based on their national origin. So a graduate from a UK medical school applying to UKFPO for their first two years work is on equal footing with a graduate from a medical school anywhere else in the European Economic Area, which includes Malta. The legal guarantee for graduates from UK medical schools to have jobs at the end of their five or six (or more) years of study was removed by the Medical Act 2006. There are many more Europeans speaking English than English people speaking European languages, and the UK is one of the more attractive places to live; there is a great asymmetry in applications to and from the continent. It is currently possible for applicants from other European countries to apply, not gain the job they want, be allocated another job, then withdraw from the process. Anecdotal evidence suggests that Maltese students were among the most common doing this. And why not? They were working to do well career-wise.

It is not yet clear whether students in Malta will be more tempted to remain in their place of graduation. RemedyUK is currently raising money to take their legal fight to the high court. Best of luck in Malta!

Spending all day learning about disease and death can be distressing at times. Freud characterised humour one of the mature ways the psyche deals with unpleasant situations. Unsurprisingly, many medical schools have a Comedy Revue. After the success of playing Edinburgh Fringe Festival over the summer, the University of Birmingham Medical School Comedy Revue will return with their brand new show to play Birmingham for three nights only: Thursday 12th March, Friday 13th March and Saturday 14th March 2009. All proceeds will be going to the NSPCC and Oxfam. The pleasantly inoffensive trailer can be found by clicking here.

A lot less weird than the previous year’s trailer, anyway.

Being an older student…i think its pc to say mature…but im not cheese, is quite challenging in many more ways than a direct school entry medical student.

I have been at PMS now for six years…it was easy to get in…i just can not get out at the moment. deadlines, exams…we all have them, but is there some leeway for mature students who enter medicine with families and life commitments. i have a handful of both.

im an ex barrister from london, ex forces from before then and soon to be an ex student when i finally qualify. ive been an elsevier rep for five years now and are slowly getting through the whole sales team lol

just wanted to say hello as you might see me blogging from time to time….and no i will not post my picture…its too scary

Having sat them twice now and passed both times, i thought it might help for some nice easy advice.

PBL based course…and i can only tell you about my experiance at PMS.

1. Get yourself a really good Clinical skills book…and read it!!!
2. But not all at once. every time you examine a system on a patient…go away and read the section on the system
3. go back and re-examine the patient….do your findings fit the diagnosis or differentials you have made?
4. go look in the notes at the actual diagnosis.
5. If your not sure ask…..doctors are now teachers (GMC) so go find your friendly F1…they have just been there and know what is the required standards.
6. Get formative feedback
7. form a group early of like minded students
8. take your new learnt skills or the extras you have just learnt in steps 3-5
9. teach your peers
10. ask them to feedback to you

we have done this and one person acts the patient/one examines and the group then feedback after the examination.

you need to learn your skills on the wards though…this is vital. its no good practicing on fit students…you need to see as many patients as possible…you are more likely to end up examining a desease process in the examination you have examined before…the confidence boost alone is great.

fianl tip…be slick with your exam..if you dither you will give the impression you do not know what to do.

practice practice practice

Jay

I have recently been asked about ” How do you go about doing research and audits”.All departments in all hospitals are required to audits! It improves clinical practice. They are great to put on your CV and help you stand out from the crowd!

1. If there is a specialty you like – try an get involved in a audit

2. Go to the department head and bug them, say you are really interested!

3. If that fails carry on bugging them! They are usually crying out for help to do them

4. Research is a little more difficult to get in on – so start with an audit to demonstrate you are keen and the reserach will follow

5. Use this as a guide to audit writing BMJ  1991;302:704-707 (23 March),

Happy researching!

As I am not the first of the new bloggers you can probably guess – I’m a medical student too! My name is Tom and I am at Robinson College, Cambridge – which, as a second year, means that I have seen the grand total of 6 patients since the course began. 

I am going to share a little about my experiences of student life which hopefully will be insightful and perhaps occasionally useful! There are just 3 weeks left before we break up for Easter so the worst of the work for this term is almost over and the 4 main courses for this year, Pathology, Pharamcology, Human Reproduction and Neurophysiology/anatomy are beginning to wind down to make space on the timetable for our options course.

Life is not all work though and I’m also really looking forward to the Officer Training Corps Annual Dinner (Yep I joined the Army while at University), a Black Tie affair at St Johns (one of the Cambridge colleges) on Saturday. It is going to be amazing.

Most importantly, I will be choosing my room for next year tomorrow – It is all decided by an arcane system in which those that were last in the previous year are first this time. I am very, very happy about this after being the absolute last person to choose last year. This does however pose a problem, can you have too much choice? I will let you know

Tom