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- Jan 3, 2015
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So just an overall gist, Limerick med is a relatively new school, it opened in 2007 and its curriculum is purely problem based learning and through this you will be learning all your disciplines at once by solving/analyzing a case with your assigned group. (Physiology, Biochem, Pathology, etc). As opposed to other schools where they have specific courses like Cell Bio, Metabolism and nutrition.
So the curriculum is broken up into different modules spanning a couple of weeks throughout the year just like the picture below. For example,
- Life Cycle we cover obs, gyne, development, embryo
- Life Control (which I am doing right now) we are learning about the nervous system.
- Life protection (immunology)
- Life Support (Cardiology/Resp)
- Life maintenance (Gastrointestinal stuff)
- Life Structure (Musculoskeletal)
So in the beginning you are assigned to a PBL group (8 - 9 people) with a tutor that is most likely a GP or another specialty. Each week has a particular case for that module that starts on Tuesday for 3 hours. And you sit in a tutorial room with your group a GP and you read the case on the TV screen and together you come up with differentials, investigations, and pathophysiology around that disease. Whatever you as a group do not know, you put it up as an unknowns. Basically you are using the case to gauge what areas in basic sciences are you deficient in and what you need to know to help the patient. At the end of tutorial 1, you and your group come up with a **** ton of Learning Objectives from your unknowns (things you need to learn). After tutorial is done you go home and look up the information yourself in textbooks/websites, etc and on Friday you meet up with your group again. The tutor will pull out a name and you have to present it to the group without looking at your notes. Essentially you need to know each topic inside out in order to teach it well or else you look like a ******* in front of everyone. So here is an example:
Module: Life Support
Tuesday
- case would be like a guy presenting to ER with chest pain
- as a group we decide what else do we need to know? Onset? severity? Pain on exertion or at rest? etc
- PBL tutor gives more info and then now what are our differentials? MI, angina, etc
- What investigations do we want? ECG, troponin levels etc
- So far we are talking about like the heart so tutor will prompt us to discuss the physiology/anatomy of the heart, coronary blood supply, innervation, etc.
- At the end of tutorial we come up with Learning objectives and the tutor will guide us on making that to ensure that we are in line with the official learning objectives school has made for that case (you get access to this so you just end up going home and doing the OFFICIAL learning objectives)
Here is the example of that weeks case.
So you basically do this every week and this is the foundation of your learning of the basic sciences, from physio to biochem to path, pharm, histology, etc.
Next Each week Thursdays and sometimes Monday you have 2 hour clinical session and UL takes pride in its clinical skills. So you will learning the skills pertaining to that topic. In the medical building upstairs we have clinical room that is simulated to look like a clinic so you will have all your equipment there (steth, otoscope, opth scope, ECG machines, examination tables, and much more). So in this case you will learn:
- how to read/interpret ECG
- how to put an ECG on a person
- how to perform cardiovascular exam
- how to take a cardiovascular history
In addition you have your anatomy Learning objectives and professional compentencies.
To help with anatomy LOs, after your first pbl session they release something called Mini cases, which are basically 10-15 little cases with like 7-8 questions each and these will help cover more of the basic sciences. Its kinda hard to explain them essentially the upper years gives us the answer to it so you just study those or else its impossible to finish them yourself and do your learning objectives. Along with the mini cases there are anatomy images you need to learn and you will get tested on that during exams.
Then the following monday, you have 1.5 hour anatomy session where you sit in room and 3 people take turns teaching you gross anatomy, histology and a little bit of pathology. They never finish their slides so you end up going home and looking through them yourself.
In addition to this you will have lectures sprinkled here and there to supplement your learning. It wont go to as much depth as you need but its more to give teach you the clinical side of things like management, complications, etc.
Along with these lectures you will have professional competency lectures (psych, biostats, sociology, law and ethics, etc)
The only lectures I go to are biostats and pharmacology lol and the clinical ones.
Assessment
-theres no midterms or quizzes but because of PBL its like studying for a midterm every week because you have to know all your learning objectives inside out to present it to your group
- Christmas and summer exams
- Each exam has a Short answer paper, 100 EMQ/MCQ and anatomy spotter (which are the images you learn in the mini cases, and this could be a histology slide, picture of cadaver, X ray, etc)
- before each main exam you have a MOCK exam.. doesn't count for marks lol so you just go in and you can gauge the type of questions they give you
For clinical skills
- you have has OCSE (Objective clinical skills examination) which is 4 stations in Winter and 8 in Summer and this is where you have to know your clinical skills inside out (theres alot but you end up becoming efficient at doing them). During that day, you dress up and you stand outside clinical room with a prompt saying "please go inside and perform a cardiovascular exam" and the buzzer will go off and you step inside and have 6 minutes to perform.
For example the stations I just had were:
1. Take a blood pressure
2. Perform a bimanual and gynecological exam
3. Take a respiratory history
4. Interpret these ECGs.
- for professional competency you have 4 essays you have to do, 1 for each disclipine (psych, soc, law, etc)
- you are also assigned 1 patient to visit every once in a while (early patient contact program) and you take their history and you do a report and a presentation in front of class (this is what im doing now)
Living arrangements
- there are two residences that are popular to med students called quigley and cappa, its literally 5 steps away from the medical school. I wake up at 8:45 get ready and make it to PBL on time without rushing.
- quigley is new and really nice its has kitchen, 2 or 4 bedrooms and washroom in each with all utensils and stuff
- its basically all ready for you, you just move in
- cappa is the same but its not as nice.. still good
- around 6800 euros for 10 months
- In terms of living off campus I dont have much info on that but first and second year, def do quigley/cappa its just more convenient
- Apply early and you will get a spot
Research
- theres no time for research first two years.. you're trying to learn the massive amount of information in such little time
- if you're keen you can try and do a small project in the summer which is what I am planning right now otherwise during the year is hard
- but in 3rd and 4th year there is a mandatory research component so dw too much about it, youll graduate with some research in your CV
Board Exams
- Irish schools in general dont prepare you for USMLE, thats more carribeans style so you have to put time aside for these things. And what I mean is sometimes the curriculum focuses on topics that are not high yield on board exams
- the good thing about UL is that all your learning is done by you so you can tailor your time anyway you want it and prepare for boards as compared to other school you have so many lectures and other stuff you have to worry about in addition to studying for board exams
- for the Canadian Exam MCCEE, thats later in 3rd year
- its hard to comment on if the school prepares you well.. I used to ask this question alot too but literally it all comes down to just working your ass off in school to get good foundation of physio and basic sciences. Then when it comes to dedicated studying time you do a lot of practice questions
- Right now whenever I do my learning objectives I use First Aid to answer them so im technically studying for it as I am doing course work as well
Resources
- upper years will hand you everything.. they will give you like a million textbooks PDF so dw about that
- they do anatomy peer led sessions and review sessions, etc so its a very friendly environment in UL, everyone is trying to help each other because its just pass or fail.. you don't have to compete against each other... until later lol
Last but most importantly... the interview..
- On the day of you will sign in and they will give you your card and 20 dollars for lunch
- You will go in a conference room with like 20 other students and you put your stuff there and you get pamphlets and pens and stuff from the school
- then there is a presentation to welcome everyone and then you are broken up into groups to simulate PBL
- Your group will get scenerio and you guys need to work together to solve it
Ex. for mine it was about you hiking in forest with friend and a bear attacks him and hes bleeding like crazy. And theres a list of equipment of have.
From this prompt you and your group decide on what to do next, how can we use our resources and how to get help, etc.
While everyone is talking there are 3 UL doctors there marking you.
So general tips:
- don't speak just for sake of speaking, they are not looking for you to have the best ideas or show that you are the best leader
- its literally for them to see if you can work in a team setting and not be the douche that shoots everyones ideas down and think that your ideas are the best
- just be yourself and be open to ideas other people bring forward, don't be afraid to ask for clarification if you dont understand something (in fact this is really good because it shows you can gauge at your deficiencies and generate discussion)
- its okay if you're sitting there quiet for a while just talk when you are ready to and be respectful
Then you have a break in conference room and then your slotted interview time with 2 people. They will call you and you walk into room with two people sitting there and your file is opened. It can be relaxed or it can be intense depending on who and these are the type of questions they will ask:
- how did you find your team session this morning?
- what did you think went well and what do you think could improve?
- what was your role in the group?
- did anyone stand out to you?
- Why did you choose ireland and why limerick?
- what do you know about limerick?
- do you know what PBL is?
- what are the pros and cons of PBL?
- Why did you pick medicine and what are some pros and challenges of being a doctor
- tell me more about _____________, and they can pick anything on resume or in your letter. For me they asked.. if theres something on your resume you are proud of and would like to bring up, what would it be?
- they asked what do you thing would be most difficult thing if you were to move to ireland
- describe a time you had a conflict in a group and how did you/your team resolve it
Those were questions I could remembered being asked.
Also here is an example of my schedule.. this week:
Overall, I enjoy UL, its really nice to live so close to the school and also our clinical skills are taught really well. We have access to lots of equipment unlike other med schools, to practise our skills. You are basically teaching yourself most of it and I personally get annoyed of it sometimes but it really does help in terms of better retention and understanding of the material. Reason is because when you learn from lectures.. sometimes you just take it at face value and memorizing. But when you learning your learning objective you are making sure you understand it very well, inside out, the whys and stuff so that when during PBL someone asks you something you can clarify it.
Its also nice not to have lectures so learning here is very active, you will never fall asleep or get bored. In PBL its very interactive and at home you just learn at your own pace. The only ****ty thing is anatomy, we have don't have cadavers but you don't need it to learn anatomy. Cadavers is just luxury. If you want to be a surgeon you will learn all that in residency so for now. And the GEMs at UL are very down to earth people so it feels like being at home in Canada, everyone is very nice and its like a little community here.
So the curriculum is broken up into different modules spanning a couple of weeks throughout the year just like the picture below. For example,
- Life Cycle we cover obs, gyne, development, embryo
- Life Control (which I am doing right now) we are learning about the nervous system.
- Life protection (immunology)
- Life Support (Cardiology/Resp)
- Life maintenance (Gastrointestinal stuff)
- Life Structure (Musculoskeletal)
So in the beginning you are assigned to a PBL group (8 - 9 people) with a tutor that is most likely a GP or another specialty. Each week has a particular case for that module that starts on Tuesday for 3 hours. And you sit in a tutorial room with your group a GP and you read the case on the TV screen and together you come up with differentials, investigations, and pathophysiology around that disease. Whatever you as a group do not know, you put it up as an unknowns. Basically you are using the case to gauge what areas in basic sciences are you deficient in and what you need to know to help the patient. At the end of tutorial 1, you and your group come up with a **** ton of Learning Objectives from your unknowns (things you need to learn). After tutorial is done you go home and look up the information yourself in textbooks/websites, etc and on Friday you meet up with your group again. The tutor will pull out a name and you have to present it to the group without looking at your notes. Essentially you need to know each topic inside out in order to teach it well or else you look like a ******* in front of everyone. So here is an example:
Module: Life Support
Tuesday
- case would be like a guy presenting to ER with chest pain
- as a group we decide what else do we need to know? Onset? severity? Pain on exertion or at rest? etc
- PBL tutor gives more info and then now what are our differentials? MI, angina, etc
- What investigations do we want? ECG, troponin levels etc
- So far we are talking about like the heart so tutor will prompt us to discuss the physiology/anatomy of the heart, coronary blood supply, innervation, etc.
- At the end of tutorial we come up with Learning objectives and the tutor will guide us on making that to ensure that we are in line with the official learning objectives school has made for that case (you get access to this so you just end up going home and doing the OFFICIAL learning objectives)
Here is the example of that weeks case.
So you basically do this every week and this is the foundation of your learning of the basic sciences, from physio to biochem to path, pharm, histology, etc.
Next Each week Thursdays and sometimes Monday you have 2 hour clinical session and UL takes pride in its clinical skills. So you will learning the skills pertaining to that topic. In the medical building upstairs we have clinical room that is simulated to look like a clinic so you will have all your equipment there (steth, otoscope, opth scope, ECG machines, examination tables, and much more). So in this case you will learn:
- how to read/interpret ECG
- how to put an ECG on a person
- how to perform cardiovascular exam
- how to take a cardiovascular history
In addition you have your anatomy Learning objectives and professional compentencies.
To help with anatomy LOs, after your first pbl session they release something called Mini cases, which are basically 10-15 little cases with like 7-8 questions each and these will help cover more of the basic sciences. Its kinda hard to explain them essentially the upper years gives us the answer to it so you just study those or else its impossible to finish them yourself and do your learning objectives. Along with the mini cases there are anatomy images you need to learn and you will get tested on that during exams.
Then the following monday, you have 1.5 hour anatomy session where you sit in room and 3 people take turns teaching you gross anatomy, histology and a little bit of pathology. They never finish their slides so you end up going home and looking through them yourself.
In addition to this you will have lectures sprinkled here and there to supplement your learning. It wont go to as much depth as you need but its more to give teach you the clinical side of things like management, complications, etc.
Along with these lectures you will have professional competency lectures (psych, biostats, sociology, law and ethics, etc)
The only lectures I go to are biostats and pharmacology lol and the clinical ones.
Assessment
-theres no midterms or quizzes but because of PBL its like studying for a midterm every week because you have to know all your learning objectives inside out to present it to your group
- Christmas and summer exams
- Each exam has a Short answer paper, 100 EMQ/MCQ and anatomy spotter (which are the images you learn in the mini cases, and this could be a histology slide, picture of cadaver, X ray, etc)
- before each main exam you have a MOCK exam.. doesn't count for marks lol so you just go in and you can gauge the type of questions they give you
For clinical skills
- you have has OCSE (Objective clinical skills examination) which is 4 stations in Winter and 8 in Summer and this is where you have to know your clinical skills inside out (theres alot but you end up becoming efficient at doing them). During that day, you dress up and you stand outside clinical room with a prompt saying "please go inside and perform a cardiovascular exam" and the buzzer will go off and you step inside and have 6 minutes to perform.
For example the stations I just had were:
1. Take a blood pressure
2. Perform a bimanual and gynecological exam
3. Take a respiratory history
4. Interpret these ECGs.
- for professional competency you have 4 essays you have to do, 1 for each disclipine (psych, soc, law, etc)
- you are also assigned 1 patient to visit every once in a while (early patient contact program) and you take their history and you do a report and a presentation in front of class (this is what im doing now)
Living arrangements
- there are two residences that are popular to med students called quigley and cappa, its literally 5 steps away from the medical school. I wake up at 8:45 get ready and make it to PBL on time without rushing.
- quigley is new and really nice its has kitchen, 2 or 4 bedrooms and washroom in each with all utensils and stuff
- its basically all ready for you, you just move in
- cappa is the same but its not as nice.. still good
- around 6800 euros for 10 months
- In terms of living off campus I dont have much info on that but first and second year, def do quigley/cappa its just more convenient
- Apply early and you will get a spot
Research
- theres no time for research first two years.. you're trying to learn the massive amount of information in such little time
- if you're keen you can try and do a small project in the summer which is what I am planning right now otherwise during the year is hard
- but in 3rd and 4th year there is a mandatory research component so dw too much about it, youll graduate with some research in your CV
Board Exams
- Irish schools in general dont prepare you for USMLE, thats more carribeans style so you have to put time aside for these things. And what I mean is sometimes the curriculum focuses on topics that are not high yield on board exams
- the good thing about UL is that all your learning is done by you so you can tailor your time anyway you want it and prepare for boards as compared to other school you have so many lectures and other stuff you have to worry about in addition to studying for board exams
- for the Canadian Exam MCCEE, thats later in 3rd year
- its hard to comment on if the school prepares you well.. I used to ask this question alot too but literally it all comes down to just working your ass off in school to get good foundation of physio and basic sciences. Then when it comes to dedicated studying time you do a lot of practice questions
- Right now whenever I do my learning objectives I use First Aid to answer them so im technically studying for it as I am doing course work as well
Resources
- upper years will hand you everything.. they will give you like a million textbooks PDF so dw about that
- they do anatomy peer led sessions and review sessions, etc so its a very friendly environment in UL, everyone is trying to help each other because its just pass or fail.. you don't have to compete against each other... until later lol
Last but most importantly... the interview..
- On the day of you will sign in and they will give you your card and 20 dollars for lunch
- You will go in a conference room with like 20 other students and you put your stuff there and you get pamphlets and pens and stuff from the school
- then there is a presentation to welcome everyone and then you are broken up into groups to simulate PBL
- Your group will get scenerio and you guys need to work together to solve it
Ex. for mine it was about you hiking in forest with friend and a bear attacks him and hes bleeding like crazy. And theres a list of equipment of have.
From this prompt you and your group decide on what to do next, how can we use our resources and how to get help, etc.
While everyone is talking there are 3 UL doctors there marking you.
So general tips:
- don't speak just for sake of speaking, they are not looking for you to have the best ideas or show that you are the best leader
- its literally for them to see if you can work in a team setting and not be the douche that shoots everyones ideas down and think that your ideas are the best
- just be yourself and be open to ideas other people bring forward, don't be afraid to ask for clarification if you dont understand something (in fact this is really good because it shows you can gauge at your deficiencies and generate discussion)
- its okay if you're sitting there quiet for a while just talk when you are ready to and be respectful
Then you have a break in conference room and then your slotted interview time with 2 people. They will call you and you walk into room with two people sitting there and your file is opened. It can be relaxed or it can be intense depending on who and these are the type of questions they will ask:
- how did you find your team session this morning?
- what did you think went well and what do you think could improve?
- what was your role in the group?
- did anyone stand out to you?
- Why did you choose ireland and why limerick?
- what do you know about limerick?
- do you know what PBL is?
- what are the pros and cons of PBL?
- Why did you pick medicine and what are some pros and challenges of being a doctor
- tell me more about _____________, and they can pick anything on resume or in your letter. For me they asked.. if theres something on your resume you are proud of and would like to bring up, what would it be?
- they asked what do you thing would be most difficult thing if you were to move to ireland
- describe a time you had a conflict in a group and how did you/your team resolve it
Those were questions I could remembered being asked.
Also here is an example of my schedule.. this week:
Overall, I enjoy UL, its really nice to live so close to the school and also our clinical skills are taught really well. We have access to lots of equipment unlike other med schools, to practise our skills. You are basically teaching yourself most of it and I personally get annoyed of it sometimes but it really does help in terms of better retention and understanding of the material. Reason is because when you learn from lectures.. sometimes you just take it at face value and memorizing. But when you learning your learning objective you are making sure you understand it very well, inside out, the whys and stuff so that when during PBL someone asks you something you can clarify it.
Its also nice not to have lectures so learning here is very active, you will never fall asleep or get bored. In PBL its very interactive and at home you just learn at your own pace. The only ****ty thing is anatomy, we have don't have cadavers but you don't need it to learn anatomy. Cadavers is just luxury. If you want to be a surgeon you will learn all that in residency so for now. And the GEMs at UL are very down to earth people so it feels like being at home in Canada, everyone is very nice and its like a little community here.
