UCD experience

[StudyLife]

I was wondering if any recent UCD student could talk about their day to day experiences at UCD.

For example: What the lecture style is? What the exams are like? Did you decide to live in residence or not? Which residence is best? etc.

Thanks!

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[PhysioMD]

well nobody has answered yet but I will speak from expriences of a recent grad of the 5 year program whom I know personally who is now doing residency in northeastern USA. We just talked a few days ago.

This person had done a couple of years of UG then applied to the 5 year. In general first thing they noticed was the difference in examination - no such thing as a 3.9 or 4.0 student unless you are some miracle child. The exams are HARD and a 75% is an amazing score. Exams will often have questions well beyond your level of instructed knowledge (which you may or may not know depending on how much you read ahead / how much you can draw links to material). It's hard on everyone but it is med school and people just do what they have to. The top students in the class basically lived at the library and were not involved in any type of clubs or ECs. My friend chose to have some sanity and get involved. As you can see still ended up matching in USA but not to an overly competitive specialty.
Issue number 2 is group work can be tough and study groups were basically formed with the US/Cdn students. My friend had said basically since the Irish students start at an early age (out of high school) it's a bit more immature and they don't have that pressure that people in North America feel in UG because they know how competitive professional schools are. So my friend chose to form study groups with other students in his situation.
There's not so much "observership" and extra stuff in hospitals like here. It's unusual for med students to linger around an OR to observe and network with surgeons (as you see at UofT for instance).
Also Ireland is a bit more paternalistic - which is why you MUST do North American electives where students are given lots of freedom to touch patients and even make mistakes. Some Irish docs will quiz you in front of patients to near tears and some will be very hesitant to let you lay hands on anyone. I hear if you have the option go RCSI because they start patient contact early and seem to be better with letting students into ORs (since it is a surgery school after all).
And with regards to the paternalism, profs will point you out in class and ask tough questions. There won't be hand holding. They won't care about emberrassing you or hurting your "feelings". Everyone will be put on the spot at some point or another, but when you see it for the first time it can be a bit of a shock.

Dublin was a good place to live. No complaints really except food can be expensive sometimes and lots of people won't rent to students, so you basically room with other Meds and take over leases from upper years who move on etc. For the most part the city is safe like any other place, there are obviously areas you should avoid alone at night. UCD campus is sort of in a "suburb" and many students commute in. Also the main affiliated hospital is farther away so students may choose to move in upper years to be closer to clinical placements. There are lots of outdoor activities for anyone who enjoys biking, running etc. The city is very green and much more relaxed than comparable American cities.
Obviously the biggest issue for someone who wants to or lets say "needs to" return (my friend has no European status), is acing the USMLE, you will basically stress like you've never stressed before in the 2nd summer. You will do NOTHING except study. Forget weddings, birthdays, flying home. You will study. You will have to ace it or you will basically be ruined. This is what my friend says is the most important thing to remember -> many of us are opting for Ireland because we might be a bit shy of the cut-offs in North America. However, if you struggled with the MCAT really consider if going abroad is smart If you do not ace USMLE, you can't just rewrite it 2 weeks later. An average or below average score will ruin any chance of going into a specialty. Be happy with FM at that point. Because we will be coming as IMGs, we will need to score higher than the average Americans' scores to be considered for a given specialty. Scoring at or below them will ruin you.
The second worst thing was the cost of matching back - as in the cost of doing electives, observerships. Some are like $400 for 2 weeks of observing. Some electives can be 4k for 4 weeks. You're paying 4k to work for free and then possibly get an average evaluation. ALWAYS USE WHATEVER AVENUES (rateMD, Ratemyprof, some med schools have preceptor rating sites) to CHECK WHO YOU ARE GETTING INTO ELECTIVE WITH!! This is where knowing people comes in handy since for most places you can put down a name or two for docs you might want to work with. Obviously in the end the school will place you where there is a spot. Interestingly this is why these preceptor rating sites exist, no student wants to stress and work for free and have some egotistical or jerk MD ruin any hope for a decent letter.

Ovearll, he said he would do it again. I don't know his MCAT but his GPA was just average which is why he probably went this route instead of facing the competition in Canada. His dad is a specialist, which is why I think he easily spent lots of time back home at one of the biggest hospitals doing his electives.

 

[nadia_h26]

Can you comment on how the grades for UCD GEM compare with other schools? Do the harder exams and lower grades put grads at a disadvantage when trying to match back to North America?

 

[PhysioMD]

To match you need:
1. Strong USMLE
2. Letters of reference from hopefully people in the region and definitely from the field you desire to match into (e.g. you want Neurology at UCSF? you better have spent significant time observing and doing clerkships there or at least in California or another well known neuro program in USA, to show you can handle their environment and keep up in an American residency and you know the California healthcare system etc.; what you don't want is to spend time only doing neuro in Dublin then think it will be enough)
3. Whatever other experiences the program of your choice looks at. This takes some research and prep on YOUR part before staring the process. Does UCSF value research pubs? if so, hopefully you started working on some kind of project early enough in med school to be on a pub or abstract

School grades are really only to pass the program and get your "MD" degree. However, remember that certain perks come to those with strong grades. I don't know specifically but for instance there is an anatomy competition at UCD which gives a limited number of students a chance to do an independent dissection project (would probably look well on a resume for someone thinking of doing surgery), I would bet the student who barely passed his anatomy tests would not get a chance at this project. I'm sure there are other things, perhaps picking placement location, or being considered for a research opportunity which might be distributed based on some kind of class standing or merit. One big thing is the US affiliated electives. FOr RCSI which has some US affiliates, I do think it is based to some degree on your class standing.

 

[nadia_h26]

Thanks a lot! That's really helpful

 

[nadia_h26]

Do you know anything about tuition changes for GEM over the last few years? I can't find any info on increases or decreases

 

[PhysioMD]

Maybe try calling UCD directly to ask about the tuition and anticipated changes.

 

[Gos81238ia]

Hey guys,
Current UCD 4th year student here, I'd be happy to answer any questions people have! I'm from Canada and matched into family medicine in the states, so if people have questions about being a Canadian applying to the states or matching in general, I can help with that too.

To start off, most north americans do live in residence the first year, although I myself did not, along with a few others. Many lived in the Glenomena residence; this dorm is set up so that you have 5 bedrooms each with their own bathroom that share a living room and kitchen. This worked out for some of my classmates and not others. The dorm facilitates trying to keep older people in the graduate programs together in one dorm, but some of my classmates were stuck in the dorms with 4 18 year olds who were just out of home and starting university, infuriating if you are older and have a previous degree. Glenomena is definitely much much cheaper than finding a 1 bedroom place on your own, but you do risk being put with younger kids who are noisy and disruptive, hence why I chose to live off campus. You do have the option of looking for shared housing through the popular rental websites, or there is a Facebook group for young doctors in Ireland who often post about needing roommates.

The first 2 years at UCD are lectures, and the last 2 are clinical placements in hospital, just like the American and Canadian schools. Lectures are good, the classic style where the professors teach from powerpoint. Obviously, they're dependent on the professor and we had some excellent proffs who love teaching and others who were not so great, as you'll find at any school. Mostly very good though . The curriculum is systems based. Year 1 semester 1 is all your basic stuff - ie. cell biology etc. Year 1 semester 2, you start getting into systems. You do the anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology of cardio and resp in year 1, then of GI/GU, endocrine, neuro and anything else in year 2. Year 2 semester 2, you start taking pre-clinical courses, so you'll get classroom lectures on OB, peds, palliative care etc. to start preparing you for clinical rotations. This is interpreted with visits to the ob hospital, the hospice etc. to start getting a taste of being in the clinical setting. Clinical skills - ie. how to do the clinical examinations - is a longitudinal curriculum and you get a 2-3 hr clinical skills session about every other week over the first 2 years. There are also anatomy labs, small group tutorials and problem based learning mixed in for most courses to solidify the learning. The exams are tough, and the exam and class schedule only makes them tougher. In our second year, we had 7 exams over 9 days during the christmas exam period. Its definitely do-able, but you'll need to be in the habit of studying from day 1 and if you are used to straight A's, get used to straight B's and C's. That being said, the top 10-20% of the class can pull off all A's in the first 2 years. The last thing to say about that, is that your grades matter very minimally in medical school! As long as they are not all D's and you don't have any fails, you're fine.

The second 2 years are clinical rotations at the hospitals. For medicine and surgery, we are divided up between the Mater Hospital and St.Vincent's hospital, easily the 2 best hospitals in Dublin. UCD definitely gets the best hospitals, and my friends from other schools agree. You'll spend some time on peripheral rotations out at Wexford General Hospital and other hospitals around Dublin. OB takes place at Holles Street Hospital and the Coombe Hospital, while peds takes place at Temple Street and Crumlin Hospitals (all in Dublin). Any rotations outside of Dublin, UCD pays to put you up in a B&B. I think I only had about 5-6 weeks total outside Dublin over 2 years, which is much much less peripheral time than RCSI students have to do. Exams during these years are notoriously hard, the school grades to a C class average, and they really won't give out A's to anyone except the top few students. I got C's and B's in all my clerkships, even an A in one and I am approximately at the 35th percentile in my class to give you an idea. When you are going through the matching process, UCD does write into your Dean's letter about their grading system, that a C is average and a B is above average. Your class rank is included as well, which speaks more about your performance than your individual grades. Not a problem for matching, that way programs get accurate info on your academic performance, I was told in all my interviews that my grades were very good.

Overall, I had a positive experience at UCD. Yes, there was an incredible amount of stress being an IMG and lots of hoops to jump through. At the end of the day, the match rates for my class this year have been fantastic and there's plenty of things IMG's can do to make their chances good if they are willing to work hard.

 

[Gos81238ia]

Do you know anything about tuition changes for GEM over the last few years? I can't find any info on increases or decreases

In terms of tuition, you're locked into the same rate for 4 years at UCD. So whatever they set the tuition rate at when you get accepted is the rate you will pay for 4 years. UCD did up their international tuition by 10,000 euro about 2 years ago. I don't know if they are making any further changes to this. The rise was to match the RCSI tuition; I guess they figured if RCSI could do it, so could they. The only real difference between what's provided at the schools is RCSI provides laptops, no plans for UCD to start doing that as far as I know. I have no idea what Trinity or the other schools charge, but keep in mind Trinity is 5 years, so even if their tuition is lower, its an extra year of it. Definitely contact Atlantic Bridge or UCD to get the rates for this year.

 

[nadia_h26]

Hey guys,
Current UCD 4th year student here, I'd be happy to answer any questions people have! I'm from Canada and matched into family medicine in the states, so if people have questions about being a Canadian applying to the states or matching in general, I can help with that too.

To start off, most north americans do live in residence the first year, although I myself did not, along with a few others. Many lived in the Glenomena residence; this dorm is set up so that you have 5 bedrooms each with their own bathroom that share a living room and kitchen. This worked out for some of my classmates and not others. The dorm facilitates trying to keep older people in the graduate programs together in one dorm, but some of my classmates were stuck in the dorms with 4 18 year olds who were just out of home and starting university, infuriating if you are older and have a previous degree. Glenomena is definitely much much cheaper than finding a 1 bedroom place on your own, but you do risk being put with younger kids who are noisy and disruptive, hence why I chose to live off campus. You do have the option of looking for shared housing through the popular rental websites, or there is a Facebook group for young doctors in Ireland who often post about needing roommates.

The first 2 years at UCD are lectures, and the last 2 are clinical placements in hospital, just like the American and Canadian schools. Lectures are good, the classic style where the professors teach from powerpoint. Obviously, they're dependent on the professor and we had some excellent proffs who love teaching and others who were not so great, as you'll find at any school. Mostly very good though . The curriculum is systems based. Year 1 semester 1 is all your basic stuff - ie. cell biology etc. Year 1 semester 2, you start getting into systems. You do the anatomy, physiology, pathology and pharmacology of cardio and resp in year 1, then of GI/GU, endocrine, neuro and anything else in year 2. Year 2 semester 2, you start taking pre-clinical courses, so you'll get classroom lectures on OB, peds, palliative care etc. to start preparing you for clinical rotations. This is interpreted with visits to the ob hospital, the hospice etc. to start getting a taste of being in the clinical setting. Clinical skills - ie. how to do the clinical examinations - is a longitudinal curriculum and you get a 2-3 hr clinical skills session about every other week over the first 2 years. There are also anatomy labs, small group tutorials and problem based learning mixed in for most courses to solidify the learning. The exams are tough, and the exam and class schedule only makes them tougher. In our second year, we had 7 exams over 9 days during the christmas exam period. Its definitely do-able, but you'll need to be in the habit of studying from day 1 and if you are used to straight A's, get used to straight B's and C's. That being said, the top 10-20% of the class can pull off all A's in the first 2 years. The last thing to say about that, is that your grades matter very minimally in medical school! As long as they are not all D's and you don't have any fails, you're fine.

The second 2 years are clinical rotations at the hospitals. For medicine and surgery, we are divided up between the Mater Hospital and St.Vincent's hospital, easily the 2 best hospitals in Dublin. UCD definitely gets the best hospitals, and my friends from other schools agree. You'll spend some time on peripheral rotations out at Wexford General Hospital and other hospitals around Dublin. OB takes place at Holles Street Hospital and the Coombe Hospital, while peds takes place at Temple Street and Crumlin Hospitals (all in Dublin). Any rotations outside of Dublin, UCD pays to put you up in a B&B. I think I only had about 5-6 weeks total outside Dublin over 2 years, which is much much less peripheral time than RCSI students have to do. Exams during these years are notoriously hard, the school grades to a C class average, and they really won't give out A's to anyone except the top few students. I got C's and B's in all my clerkships, even an A in one and I am approximately at the 35th percentile in my class to give you an idea. When you are going through the matching process, UCD does write into your Dean's letter about their grading system, that a C is average and a B is above average. Your class rank is included as well, which speaks more about your performance than your individual grades. Not a problem for matching, that way programs get accurate info on your academic performance, I was told in all my interviews that my grades were very good.

Overall, I had a positive experience at UCD. Yes, there was an incredible amount of stress being an IMG and lots of hoops to jump through. At the end of the day, the match rates for my class this year have been fantastic and there's plenty of things IMG's can do to make their chances good if they are willing to work hard.

Thanks so much! This is incredibly helpful. I was wondering how many electives you did in North America and when during your degree you completed them. Also, did you try matching back to Canada, or go straight for a US residency? I've been seeing a lot of chatter about SON and J1 visas, how did you sort out all the government requirements to get your residency?

 

[Gos81238ia]

Thanks so much! This is incredibly helpful. I was wondering how many electives you did in North America and when during your degree you completed them. Also, did you try matching back to Canada, or go straight for a US residency? I've been seeing a lot of chatter about SON and J1 visas, how did you sort out all the government requirements to get your residency?

UCD gives you about 9 weeks of summer after 3rd year, where you can do electives before submitting ERAS/CaRMS (applications for residency in the states and Canada). I did a month long internal med elective at Western, a month of family medicine at Emory (Atlanta, GA), then I skipped the first week back of UCD to do 2 weeks with a family doctor at her private clinic in London, ON. 10 weeks total for the summer, only one month in the states! January of fourth year is also off at UCD, and did another month long family medicine elective at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). Despite my applications already being in, I was highly interested in that program, so used the month as an "audition" to show them my abilities and enthusiasm and I figured if I didn't match, it would be an extra elective on my CV. Schools generally don't let students come for electives once you are graduated.

I did apply to both CaRMS and ERAS, Canada and the States. Personally, I was couples matching which made CaRMS tricky. In CaRMS, there are set spots for IMG's and set spots for Canadian grads. So for example, if there are 10 spots in Winnipeg for family medicine, 1 MUST be filled by an IMG, and 9 must be filled by Canadian grads. It forces them to take IMG's, but usually only one per program. In ERAS, anyone can apply for any spot, they don't have to take IMG's, or they can choose to take mostly IMG's. Since me and my partner both wanted family med, we didn't apply to any Canadian programs which only took 1 IMG as we didn't want to be apart, unfortunately that's most programs. Second issue was, I unfortunately didn't get the NAC OSCE cut off for Ontario family med, so that limited me as well. I was unwilling to compromise and choose a specialty in Canada with lower NAC OSCE cutoffs. No problem for the states, we got plenty of interviews and matched together into the same fm program. Obviously a personal decision for me to limit my CaRMS options, but its always a good idea for IMG's to have the states as a backup. There are only about 120 FM spots for IMG's in Canada, whereas there are 7000-8000 family med spots IMG's can apply to in the states for FM.

As for Visa things, for Canadians to work in the states, you require a visa. The J1 is the only one you would be eligible for if you're going into residency straight out of med school. This is a "non-immigrant" visa and requires you to leave the country for 2 years after residency, unless you complete a J1 waiver agreement, where you sign a US government contract to work in a rural area. In order to get the J1 visa, Health Canada must give you a statement of need. This is basically saying, since you have to leave the states afterwards, there is a need for your specialty in Canada. Health Canada decides which specialties they give statements of need for, and they put limits on the number they give out. This information is available here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/hhr-rhs/postgrad-postdoc/cat_b-list-liste-eng.php. If you want to train in a specialty that's not listed there, you cannot do so in the states as a Canadian. If your specialty is on this list, you just have to apply for the statement of need within the number they give out. The application for the statement of need is simple, it was a 2 page form and I sent it in by email within minutes of getting my match results and was told I was within the limit. I had a friend who did the same with OB, and even though they only give out 20 statements of need for OB, he was in the limit. Getting the statement of need and J1 is really not a worry if your specialty has statements of need available.

 

[Gos81238ia]

Thanks so much! This is incredibly helpful. I was wondering how many electives you did in North America and when during your degree you completed them. Also, did you try matching back to Canada, or go straight for a US residency? I've been seeing a lot of chatter about SON and J1 visas, how did you sort out all the government requirements to get your residency?

I guess one other thing to say about electives is UCD gets the least time compared to other Irish schools over the summer of 3rd year. Its 9 weeks, so most people got 8 weeks done as its almost impossible to schedule them perfectly to use up all the weeks. Most people did one elective in Canada and one in the states. Many of us skipped the first week back and faced repercussions from the school to try and get in some extra elective time. That being said, as long as you manage to get all the letters you need for ERAS, it doesn't really affect your application. RCSI gets September as well to do electives, 12 weeks total and Limerick gets June-Aug, so at least 12 weeks as well just to compare.

 

[nadia_h26]

UCD gives you about 9 weeks of summer after 3rd year, where you can do electives before submitting ERAS/CaRMS (applications for residency in the states and Canada). I did a month long internal med elective at Western, a month of family medicine at Emory (Atlanta, GA), then I skipped the first week back of UCD to do 2 weeks with a family doctor at her private clinic in London, ON. 10 weeks total for the summer, only one month in the states! January of fourth year is also off at UCD, and did another month long family medicine elective at Mayo Clinic (Rochester, MN). Despite my applications already being in, I was highly interested in that program, so used the month as an "audition" to show them my abilities and enthusiasm and I figured if I didn't match, it would be an extra elective on my CV. Schools generally don't let students come for electives once you are graduated.

I did apply to both CaRMS and ERAS, Canada and the States. Personally, I was couples matching which made CaRMS tricky. In CaRMS, there are set spots for IMG's and set spots for Canadian grads. So for example, if there are 10 spots in Winnipeg for family medicine, 1 MUST be filled by an IMG, and 9 must be filled by Canadian grads. It forces them to take IMG's, but usually only one per program. In ERAS, anyone can apply for any spot, they don't have to take IMG's, or they can choose to take mostly IMG's. Since me and my partner both wanted family med, we didn't apply to any Canadian programs which only took 1 IMG as we didn't want to be apart, unfortunately that's most programs. Second issue was, I unfortunately didn't get the NAC OSCE cut off for Ontario family med, so that limited me as well. I was unwilling to compromise and choose a specialty in Canada with lower NAC OSCE cutoffs. No problem for the states, we got plenty of interviews and matched together into the same fm program. Obviously a personal decision for me to limit my CaRMS options, but its always a good idea for IMG's to have the states as a backup. There are only about 120 FM spots for IMG's in Canada, whereas there are 7000-8000 family med spots IMG's can apply to in the states for FM.

As for Visa things, for Canadians to work in the states, you require a visa. The J1 is the only one you would be eligible for if you're going into residency straight out of med school. This is a "non-immigrant" visa and requires you to leave the country for 2 years after residency, unless you complete a J1 waiver agreement, where you sign a US government contract to work in a rural area. In order to get the J1 visa, Health Canada must give you a statement of need. This is basically saying, since you have to leave the states afterwards, there is a need for your specialty in Canada. Health Canada decides which specialties they give statements of need for, and they put limits on the number they give out. This information is available here: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hcs-sss/hhr-rhs/postgrad-postdoc/cat_b-list-liste-eng.php. If you want to train in a specialty that's not listed there, you cannot do so in the states as a Canadian. If your specialty is on this list, you just have to apply for the statement of need within the number they give out. The application for the statement of need is simple, it was a 2 page form and I sent it in by email within minutes of getting my match results and was told I was within the limit. I had a friend who did the same with OB, and even though they only give out 20 statements of need for OB, he was in the limit. Getting the statement of need and J1 is really not a worry if your specialty has statements of need available.

How did you arrange your electives? I've heard that the NA ones they offer through the school are really competitive and that some people arrange them on their own. Also, Is shadowing/observership experience in the preclinical years helpful for this?

 

[Gos81238ia]

How did you arrange your electives? I've heard that the NA ones they offer through the school are really competitive and that some people arrange them on their own. Also, Is shadowing/observership experience in the preclinical years helpful for this?

At all of the Irish schools, you will need to arrange them on your own. UCD does run an essay contest, but they only have about 2-3 spots available for programs in the states and none for Canada. Irish students can compete in the essay contest as well, so sometimes they may get one of those 2 spots. Even for those who happen to win, that's just one elective, so you will still have to arrange some on your own. RCSI has a system where they have pre-set spots around the US and Canada, maybe 5-8 in Canada and 10-15 in the states. These are for pre-set specialties, during pre-set months AND they have a policy that their students cannot apply to these schools outside of applying for these spots internally in RCSI. The spots are allocated based on grades, and again, Irish students can apply and get these as well. My partner, who is an RCSI student wanted family medicine, but they didn't have any family medicine spots so he again had to arrange his own. Even for those who did get an elective through this system, they still had to arrange other ones.

Getting Canadian electives is a nice centralized process now, its all done on this website: https://www.afmcstudentportal.ca. You pay $500 to sign up and you upload all your documents, then you click through and apply to each school and pick out a list of preferences for electives. Each school you apply for has an additional fee as well, anywhere from $25 to $500. Then theres varied tuition fees as well. For American electives, its not centralized, you need to apply to each school individually. It can be frustrating to figure out where to apply, how many applications to do etc. Most people just start from schools they know other students did electives at or matched at. FREIDA is an online information tool that lists all the info about various programs. Its free to sign up for and can be a good place to get ideas of where to apply for electives. Some schools have paper applications that you mail in, others you do online. Application fees range again from free to several hundred dollars, plus tuition fees.

Again, the elective application process was very frustrating, but it did work out for almost everyone in the end. It was really hard to figure out where to apply, how many places to apply to, what specialties to go for etc. Not to mention you're doing these while on clerkship and studying for board exams. The schools only help in so far as signing off the forms needed for your applications. Electives aren't given out until late, multiple people from my class didn't have an elective yet for August at the end of June. But, the vast majority of North Americans in my class did manage to get 2 North American electives. Some had to get an "unofficial" elective - basically you just call up a family friend and see if you can do a clinical rotation with them instead of officially applying through a University. These may fill school requirements, but there's no real consensus as far as I know how letters from those electives look in ERAS. Basically, if its getting close, you just apply to as many American schools as you can, with phone calls to them to ask really nicely for an elective. The UCD international office did send off an email to support applications for 1 or 2 people that asked that they do that, so that's something. This is how it is in all the Irish schools, they cannot get you an elective spot in North America guaranteed. They do little things to help you here and there, but really it is up to the individual.

UCD is looking at changing their curriculum around a little for future years to allow for more elective time; we just completed a big survey about that, and it was clear that we wanted more elective time, so UCD is working to facilitate this, which will hopefully be a positive change!

 

[PhysioMD]

I have 3 specific UCD Questions:
1. Is attendance mandatory? if not, are lectures recorded for viewing at a later time?

2. Can you be specific about the general annual time off:
- when do classes start first year?
- do you have any time off at Christmas?
- do you have spring break?
- how many weeks off do you have in Summer after 1st year, after 2nd year, after 3rd year?

I just want to know in terms of specific amount of days/weeks off in order to plan for potential electives/observership back home.

3. Is it customary for medical students in Dublin to be doing their own observership/shadowing with doctors in Irish hospitals? Asking to observe ORs in the evenings/weekends/any time free from class? For instance here in Ontario most students will try to network from early on and arrange observerships during the school year. UofT specifically has alloted "study time" in each week's schedule and many students use these 2-4 hours/week to shadow a doctor they personally contacted for a few weeks.

Just one more thing, someone stated that UCD only has a couple of hours of "clinical skills" lab time every 2 weeks? does this seem sufficient?? I know Ontario schools do much more

 

[Gos81238ia]

I have 3 specific UCD Questions:
1. Is attendance mandatory? if not, are lectures recorded for viewing at a later time?

2. Can you be specific about the general annual time off:
- when do classes start first year?
- do you have any time off at Christmas?
- do you have spring break?
- how many weeks off do you have in Summer after 1st year, after 2nd year, after 3rd year?

I just want to know in terms of specific amount of days/weeks off in order to plan for potential electives/observership back home.

3. Is it customary for medical students in Dublin to be doing their own observership/shadowing with doctors in Irish hospitals? Asking to observe ORs in the evenings/weekends/any time free from class? For instance here in Ontario most students will try to network from early on and arrange observerships during the school year. UofT specifically has alloted "study time" in each week's schedule and many students use these 2-4 hours/week to shadow a doctor they personally contacted for a few weeks.

Just one more thing, someone stated that UCD only has a couple of hours of "clinical skills" lab time every 2 weeks? does this seem sufficient?? I know Ontario schools do much more

1. Attendance is not mandatory for lectures in years 1 and 2, it is for certain tutorials and labs. Lectures are not recorded, although power points are available.

2. I've attached a file of the general program outline for 4 years, so you can see when there is time off.

First year - month off Christmas, 4 months off for summer (can travel, do research, do observerships, work and save money), 1 week spring break
Second year - month off for Christmas, no spring break (there's technically a week, but you have exams scheduled then), 9 weeks off over summer (you'll use that whole time to write USMLE Step 1)
Third year - month off for Christmas, no spring break, 9 weeks of summer (North American electives, Step 2 CK potentially, Step 2 CS, fly back to Canada for NAC OSCE during first 2 weeks of 4th year
Fourth year - 2 months off over Christmas (mid-Dec to mid-Feb, used for interviews or extra electives), done in April

In terms of arranging observerships with Irish doctors, you absolutely can, they are really friendly and love having students! It is super uncommon for north american students to do this. Observing an Irish doctor does absolutely nothing to help you get back to North America, you need NA electives and letters to accomplish that. It's not the same as an Ontario student networking with Ontario doctors and planning to stay in the province. Secondly, you are going to be much much more busy than your Irish classmates and even more busy than Ontario medical students. Starting summer of second year, you have about 14 months where you will be writing Step 1, Step 2 CK, Step 2 CS, MCCEE and NAC OSCE exams plus getting and completing electives. This is all while doing your required clerkships and still passing school. Canadian medical students don't have board exams to take, they can just focus on school, just to compare. Then during fourth year, you'll be submitting applications and flying around to 2 different countries to try and get residency. You will be so so busy and you'll get plenty of experience on your clerkships, trust me you will not need or want any more.

Some people do observerships during summer of first year, which is really your only time off. Many did these back home in NA. The only real reason to do one in Ireland would be if you wanted experience in something like Surgery before considering whether or not you'll apply for it and need to work extra hard on Step 1 for it. Research is another big thing people do that summer, UCD has a program called the SSRA's (summer student research awards) where you can apply to complete a clinically focused research project and there's multiple spots available in North America. We had multiple people do this at Sick Kids in Toronto!

Finally in terms of clinical skills, I didn't mean for it to sound negative, Irish schools are actually notorious for teaching excellent clinical technique, something I've found true when doing my electives back in NA. You get a 3 hour clinical skills session every 2 weeks for the first 2 years of medical school. You are given a clinical skills handbook and each part of each clinical exam is taught in meticulous detail. Real patients come in for this, there's dummies for some clinical skills practice. Finally, at the end of second year at UCD you have a week long clinical skills bootcamp, and then you have your first OSCE of medical school. You get tons of clinical skills focused tutorials over the final 2 clerkship years, where you will be examined with a multi-station OSCE for each clerkship, so your clinical history taking and examination techniques will be vigorously tested. You'll be in great hands for clinical skills anywhere in Ireland.

 

[PhysioMD]

Great! Thank you for the detailed response. So in terms of lectures not being recorded - do you find most people attend lecture? I've heard from Ontario students that most poeople end up skipping lectures to self-study or do all those other things (network/observe docs, research etc)

 

[Gos81238ia]

Great! Thank you for the detailed response. So in terms of lectures not being recorded - do you find most people attend lecture? I've heard from Ontario students that most poeople end up skipping lectures to self-study or do all those other things (network/observe docs, research etc)

Sure, I hope that helps! It really depends on the people, maybe half half. Some people learn really well by attending lectures and are serial attenders. Others don't gain much from listening to lectures, so they are serial skippers. Overall, attendance drops off throughout the semester as people start skipping to study near exam time. Depends on the proff too, some are better than others and thats reflected in the attendance. By second year, a lot of the north americans will have started using first aid and discovered pathoma and find that they learn better from those resources than from class. Totally up to you. There is a TON of material, especially in second year so I found it good to go to lectures just so I was up early every morning, up to date with what was going on in class and familiar with the slides. In second year, you'll have 7 courses going at once, so studying and keeping up with all of them is a ton of work every day. Again, first year summer is your time to do additional things, you'll find it very difficult to do anything but study with lectures 9-5 and all those courses to keep up with.

 

[StudyLife]

Sure, I hope that helps! It really depends on the people, maybe half half. Some people learn really well by attending lectures and are serial attenders. Others don't gain much from listening to lectures, so they are serial skippers. Overall, attendance drops off throughout the semester as people start skipping to study near exam time. Depends on the proff too, some are better than others and thats reflected in the attendance. By second year, a lot of the north americans will have started using first aid and discovered pathoma and find that they learn better from those resources than from class. Totally up to you. There is a TON of material, especially in second year so I found it good to go to lectures just so I was up early every morning, up to date with what was going on in class and familiar with the slides. In second year, you'll have 7 courses going at once, so studying and keeping up with all of them is a ton of work every day. Again, first year summer is your time to do additional things, you'll find it very difficult to do anything but study with lectures 9-5 and all those courses to keep up with.

Thanks for the detailed responses! All this information is super useful.

The only question I have left is whether most NA students live on campus or off campus in first year?

 

[Gos81238ia]

Thanks for the detailed responses! All this information is super useful.

The only question I have left is whether most NA students live on campus or off campus in first year?

Most lived on campus for UCD, in Glenomena residence. That residence is set up so that 5 bedrooms (which each have their own bathroom) share one kitchen/living room. Like I said above, the residence people try and facilitate keeping the older graduate med and vet students together, but that doesn't work out for everyone. Some of my classmates were unfortunately in rooms with 3-4 18 year olds, fresh into college, who were partying until all hours of the morning almost every night. Myself and a few others sucked it up and did the harder thing of finding somewhere to rent off campus, let me tell you I loved my apartment, particularly when people were complaining about their young roomies or weird residence policies. If I were you, I'd try and get the names of a few other North American graduate entry students and request to be in the same residence room as them (you can request roommates) to not be put with 18 year olds (no offence to any 18 year olds reading this ).

 

[deleted158872]

is research mandatory at UCD?

 

[StudyLife]

Most lived on campus for UCD, in Glenomena residence. That residence is set up so that 5 bedrooms (which each have their own bathroom) share one kitchen/living room. Like I said above, the residence people try and facilitate keeping the older graduate med and vet students together, but that doesn't work out for everyone. Some of my classmates were unfortunately in rooms with 3-4 18 year olds, fresh into college, who were partying until all hours of the morning almost every night. Myself and a few others sucked it up and did the harder thing of finding somewhere to rent off campus, let me tell you I loved my apartment, particularly when people were complaining about their young roomies or weird residence policies. If I were you, I'd try and get the names of a few other North American graduate entry students and request to be in the same residence room as them (you can request roommates) to not be put with 18 year olds (no offence to any 18 year olds reading this ).

Thanks for the info! Haha Ya I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of 18 year olds...

 

[PhysioMD]

hmm, I really hope the Irish schools would try to adapt the new changes seen in Ontario. The programs are becoming much more flexible after student feedback. Gone are the days of 9-5 lectures except perhaps in the weeks prior to exams, but there is so much flexibility to study on your own. I guess as long as you end up in a med school program you shouldn't complain, but I really wish it was not 9-5 all the way through.
I saw online there are some interesting awards students can compete for, such as the dissection prize. How competitive would you say the atmosphere is? I understand it is med school, but are people really cut-throat about things or more cooperative? I would worry with the stress/ competition to return to North America, it might not always be the best atmosphere amongst the North American classmates.

 

[PhysioMD]

in first year med it says you have a selective course (choose 1 of 7) - any recommendations? any particularly better than others based on feedback?

 

[Gos81238ia]

Thanks for the info! Haha Ya I don't want to be stuck with a bunch of 18 year olds...

Yup, always good to have a heads up. Like I said, it would be best to get names of other graduate entry students and try and get a dorm with them if going that route. In previous threads on this forum, people have said that House 4 at Glenomena is where all the North American graduate entry students tend to go.

 

[Gos81238ia]

hmm, I really hope the Irish schools would try to adapt the new changes seen in Ontario. The programs are becoming much more flexible after student feedback. Gone are the days of 9-5 lectures except perhaps in the weeks prior to exams, but there is so much flexibility to study on your own. I guess as long as you end up in a med school program you shouldn't complain, but I really wish it was not 9-5 all the way through.
I saw online there are some interesting awards students can compete for, such as the dissection prize. How competitive would you say the atmosphere is? I understand it is med school, but are people really cut-throat about things or more cooperative? I would worry with the stress/ competition to return to North America, it might not always be the best atmosphere amongst the North American classmates.

If you're interested in a new way of teaching, look into Limerick. They do their first 2 years entirely in problem based learning format; no lectures whatsoever, all teaching is done in small groups where each student is responsible for preparing a piece to share with the group. UCD does do PBL and tutorials which are really great, and like I said, if you're not the type to learn well from lectures then its not required to go to class.

Actually in terms of competitiveness, its the exact opposite. One of the things I love most about UCD is the cooperative atmosphere I have with my classmates, especially the North American ones. The Irish culture in general is so much more friendly and cooperative than at home, I've never felt cut down or pushed out of the way by a classmate, I could reach out to anyone and ask for help. Yes, there are tons of prizes and medals to compete for. There's the dissection prize and the student research awards (SSRAs) after first year summer. During clinical years, there are constantly prize exams you can sit, either oral or written as well as case competitions. But everyone is very supportive! I find that North Americans tend not to go for these, just since third year we are swamped with board exams and fourth year we are busy with applications and interviews. Multiple North Americans did compete in the SSRA's and did well!

We have multiple Facebook and whatsapp groups, one for the class, one for each hospital people are assigned to, one for North Americans and people are constantly asking questions and getting support. I think one of the reasons Irish schools are so successful are due to the NIMSA (North American Irish Medical Student's Association) chapter present at each school; this is a student run organization which facilitates the upper years basically walking the lower years through the whole matching process, from step 1 down to the final match. Multiple talks every year, social events, sports games etc. It may seem like it could get competitive amongst the North Americans, but really what happens is that no one really knows exactly what they're doing at each step, so everyone reaches out to each other as well as NIMSA and tackles things as a group.

 

[Gos81238ia]

is research mandatory at UCD?

Nope! UCD gives the opportunity to participate in the SSRA's after first year, which are set research projects that take place all over the world which you can take up. Its definitely not mandatory. There are also opportunities in hospitals where people are looking to recruit students for clinical audits. Finally, you can approach any professor at any time and ask about what their lab is doing, we had a few people get set up with projects just by doing that.

 

[Gos81238ia]

in first year med it says you have a selective course (choose 1 of 7) - any recommendations? any particularly better than others based on feedback?

If you are coming from a non-science degree, UCD recommends you take molecules in medicine. That's an intensive science "catch-up" course for those coming from other backgrounds. It goes over fundamental basics, what is a cell etc.

Most people take Social History of Irish Healthcare, affectionately known to students as "story time". Its the history of nursing in Ireland and its the easiest class you will ever take, hence why upper years say to take it and give yourself a break. You can ace the final exam with one day's study.

Some people did take food diet and health, but they had frequent quizzes from what I remember, and of course it extends into the second semester. It was interesting and applicable.

A few took into psych, which is always a great course too, but unlike story time, there's reading to do and concepts to learn, which may be worth it if you're interested!

I don't know of anyone who took physics or social anthropology, so not sure about those.

 

[StudyLife]

Yup, always good to have a heads up. Like I said, it would be best to get names of other graduate entry students and try and get a dorm with them if going that route. In previous threads on this forum, people have said that House 4 at Glenomena is where all the North American graduate entry students tend to go.

I don't think I want to go through the hassle of finding a place to live (at least for the first year). I think I'll try my luck with House 4 and hopefully I won't get stuck with a bunch of 18 year olds (no offense to 18 year olds). If any other UCD GEM students are thinking of living in Residence maybe we can try to apply for the same residence

 

[PhysioMD]

Speaking to other U.S. and Canadian students in your class, did you gather a sense as to why people picked Ireland for medicine training? Did they attempt to enter school back home? Did they consider DO? Did anyone regret the decision?

 

[Gos81238ia]

Speaking to other U.S. and Canadian students in your class, did you gather a sense as to why people picked Ireland for medicine training? Did they attempt to enter school back home? Did they consider DO? Did anyone regret the decision?

Different reasons really for everyone coming over to Ireland. Great clinical skills training and good match rates as well as a strong reputation in North America are the most common reasons for choosing Ireland. Compared to Australia, its a lot closer to home which is a big factor for some people. Its a different experience compared to the Caribbean; smaller class sizes, you are not segregated off onto an island for years 1-2 and get to have some clinical exposure during those years. Also, the Irish schools don't do things like ask for 4 years of tuition up front or fail people out to keep their step averages up like some Caribbean schools are known for doing.

Yes, everyone had attempted at least one cycle of applications back home, other than the undergraduate entry students who for the most part entered the 6 year program right from high school. I don't know of anyone specifically who applied to DO, but I'm sure people considered it.

As for regrets, some of my classmates do say that they think people shouldn't come to Ireland without an EU passport because its too risky to have absolutely no guaranteed job with the debt that many people take on to come here. That's a matter of opinion because there have been several people from multiple schools last year who took a year out (and couldn't work in the EU) and matched this year. I don't know if anyone TRULY regrets their decision; we only had 2-3 people who went unmatched this year and they would probably be the only ones who might have regrets at this point. That being said, they still have a shot at matching in the upcoming years, so who knows.

 

[deleted390966]

Some had to get an "unofficial" elective - basically you just call up a family friend and see if you can do a clinical rotation with them instead of officially applying through a University. These may fill school requirements, but there's no real consensus as far as I know how letters from those electives look in ERAS.

Having looked at lots of programs, I'm sure those electives don't count as USCE.

 

[StudyLife]

I just received an email from atlantic bridge about UCD housing. Each on campus housing unit has 6 single bedrooms. There is no guarantee that you won't be roomed with a bunch of first year undergraduate students (in other words a bunch of 18 year olds).

However, there is way you can increase you chances of living with other students accepted into the GEM program. If anyone else starting at UCD in September wants to live on campus with other UCD GEM program students let me know! We can request to live in the same unit