Irish med school help

[endosmoke]

Hi,

I am currently attending Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) and I would just like you people to know that if anyone needs any help concerning anything to do with irish med schools, social life, moving here, residencies etc... please don't hesitate to ask me. I will answer all your questions if possible..

good luck on your studies.

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[Choda]

Welcome!

I will be attending this coming oct....
I'm very stoked to go...
And i do have some questions for ya..

1. What year are you in?
2. Where are you from?
3. How do you like the teaching? (if you can describe it a bit) and classes?
4. Resources? (library, gym, rez etc.)
5. your impression on life in dublin
6. If you're in clinicals...your impression?

You don't have to answer everything, but anything would help.
Thanks a lot!

 

[HussainGQ]

Hi, how many people from your school are from North America?? What percentage of them past the USMLE on their first attempt?? What about residency programs, are people from your school competitive in seeking good residency positions in America??

 

[leorl]

Hussain, the applications go through Atlanic Bridge (www.atlanticbridge.com). They quote a 95% pass rate for Step I of the USMLE, and a 100% Match rate. Remember, this only takes into account the north americans who do the USMLE and try to match.

 

[endosmoke]

Welcome!

I will be attending this coming oct....
I'm very stoked to go...
And i do have some questions for ya..

1. What year are you in?
2. Where are you from?
3. How do you like the teaching? (if you can describe it a bit) and classes?
4. Resources? (library, gym, rez etc.)
5. your impression on life in dublin
6. If you're in clinicals...your impression?

You don't have to answer everything, but anything would help.
Thanks a lot!

well im in the preclinical years right now so i cant really answer your clinical questions from personal experience. However, i have a few friends who are interns and who are in the clinical years. So to start off I am from Toronto, Canada. The teaching here is alright... I mean i went to McGill before coming here and I have seen better professors. Saying that, this doesn't this school has horrible teaching. Different profs teach differently and there are a lot of great profs here.. but the one that suck.. suck really bad.. heh..

resources are mediocre... library is small in comparison to any american college/canadian university.. but then again RCSI is strictly a medical school/physio/nursing and nothing else

gym is crap.. total crap.. it is tiny.. but RCSi just built a new building with a new gym.. I havent been in it yet since its not ready. but i think it would be better then the current gym. One good thing is that the irish are lazy butts so despite the small gym.. no one is there anyawys.. only the preclinical students.. all the clinical students aren't at the college most of the time..

residence.. is a must.. great fun.. this is where you will be meeting some of your closest friends in your medical career.. highly recommended.. dont stay in Millin house as socially that place sucks.. Mercer court, is much more of a typical residence life..

impression of dublin.. hrmm.. well .. lets put it this way.. its more of a "giant village" rather than a city.. it pales in comparison to NYC, chicago, toronto, ,montreal, etc.. but then again remember the #1 reason why you are here is to study and to get a good education.. that being said there are tons of pubs almost every other building is one.. and a lot of different types of clubs... i mean the nightlife is really rather who you are with then where you are..

if you have any questions don't hesitate to privately message me ..
sorry for the long delay.. im just finishing up my research and stats is being a bitch!!!

good luck and take care
study hard, play hard!

 

[endosmoke]

Hi, how many people from your school are from North America?? What percentage of them past the USMLE on their first attempt?? What about residency programs, are people from your school competitive in seeking good residency positions in America??

Well from what I have heard so far.. i have only heard of 1 person failing.. so i guess thast pretty good.. it seems that marks on the USMLE ranges from 85 to 99% so i guess thast pretty good..

in terms of # from n.america.. we are probably looking at about 1/3 of the class is n.american..

everyone matches..so its pretty high.. i havent heard of one case yet where a med student didn't get into anywhere... so i wouldnt worry abuot not getting into a residency.. but whether you get what you want and where is a different story. I mean its pretty well distributed..there are students in plastics, derm, radiology (currently the toughest to get into due to the good lifestyle) and there are people who end in neurosurg, cardio, internal, etc..
it is a myth that foreign medical graduates all end up being in internal or gp.
also when it comes to our clinical electives our school has strong ties with certain medical collegs in the US like John hopkins (they allocate 10 RCSI students there every year for clinical electives) and other places like columbia (less than 10, not sure the exact number) etc..



when it comes to stuff like the USMLE it is more or less the amount of work you do reflects on your score.. and I think we do quite well cause we are given a whole summer (3 months) to prepare for it while amreican colleges are given 3 weeks?? (correct me if i am wrong)

also dont get caught up in just studying... i mean i am sure most med students can get a good mark if they sat at home everyday studying 24/7.. what really stands you out is good marks and good involvement, extracurricular activities and obviously research which is probably pretty damn important for a foreign medical graduate who wants to go back to the US

basically study hard, play hard!

dont hesitate to ask me any questions.. you can email me at [email protected]

good luck!