UQ clinical teaching

[deleted390966]

Can alumni attest on the clinical skills teaching quality at UQ? Especially how you compare to US students when you do rotations. I've heard a few saying that UQ interns don't have as good clinical skills as Griffith or JCU interns, is that true?

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[Kakaonkaka]

do you have a link to this? I've applied to UQ and Griffiths.

 

[deleted390966]

Link to? I just read past posts in this forum.

 

[pitman]

I supervise a lot of juniors coming out of Qld med schools in ED and less so on med wards. My experience has been that JCU interns are on average best clinically, which I find interesting given that they are on average several years younger than UQ or Griffith grads. I think the reason for this is that they spend most of their student clinical years in rural settings where they'd be expected to be more independent than in regional centres. On the other hand, the smaller percentage of interns from UQ who did most their clinical rotations similarly rural are on par with them, and maybe a bit more common-sensical (?due to their advanced age). I wouldn't say that interns from Griffith are any stronger or weaker than those from UQ.

 

[Kakaonkaka]

I see, thanks for your insight pitman, appreciate it.

 

[qldking]

There is no clinical teaching at UQ. There's like a 12:1 ratio of med students to clinical instructor and you only have an hour or so of allotted clinical time.

 

[pitman]

As usual, qldking, with your obsessive bitterness and exaggerated generalizations, you make no sense and thus aren't helping your cause.

If you ask Ochsner students, they generally report how well prepared they are clinically compared to their US counterparts by the time they get back to the US, before the clinical years even start. If you ask supervisors of the interns/JHOs, you will get all sorts of responses based on personal experience with varying samples, and mine is above.

My advice is if you come (to any Australian school) and want to have the best clinical exposure, like anywhere learn which hospitals/regions do the best job for each term (I'd advise general exposure over the [sub-]specialized, to get the basics down), be proactive in getting placed there, and make the best of wherever you are. You are not a passive mere statistic but a proactive research animal. This isn't rocket science, er, brain surgery.

 

[sean80439]

There is no clinical teaching at UQ. There's like a 12:1 ratio of med students to clinical instructor and you only have an hour or so of allotted clinical time.

That's funny because there's 4 of us with our clinical coach (4:1), and we spend 2 hours min with her a week on the wards seeing patients. We just turned in some long cases today that are directly related to this. I feel like I get pretty decent clinical time. There are far more relevant things to complain that UQ does poorly, but this isn't really one of them.

 

[drvfedorov]

That's funny because there's 4 of us with our clinical coach (4:1), and we spend 2 hours min with her a week on the wards seeing patients. We just turned in some long cases today that are directly related to this. I feel like I get pretty decent clinical time. There are far more relevant things to complain that UQ does poorly, but this isn't really one of them.

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I am considering going to UQ, how large are the class sizes in Year 1 and 2, and where are people getting the 12:1 ratio's? What are the other things that UQ does poorly? thanks.

 

[sean80439]

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I am considering going to UQ, how large are the class sizes in Year 1 and 2, and where are people getting the 12:1 ratio's? What are the other things that UQ does poorly? thanks.

There are tons of posts already on this. Read stuff I have posted along with Pitman and a few others that actually attend or have attended. The 12:1 is wrong even in first year. First year you don't do clinical visits, you do clinical coaching (which is the same group as your CBL group) and CBL. The biggest CBL groups are 10 people (mine this year and last year was 9). Second year, they split the CBL group in half for clinical coaching visits - which are done in hospital where you see patients. The misinformation is rampant, which I don't quite understand. I have said it before, there are tons of legitimate things to complain about just like any medical school, but some of the stuff I see people write is just completely false. Class size is ~500, but they break up all of the non-lecture stuff into smaller groups of 50 or so. You don't have to attend lecture if you don't want to. 95% of them are recorded and/or have slides posted.

 

[mcat_taker]

Sorry if this is a bit off topic, but I am considering going to UQ, how large are the class sizes in Year 1 and 2, and where are people getting the 12:1 ratio's? What are the other things that UQ does poorly? thanks.

The class size this year was 543, but it never feels that big because the only time we are all together is for lectures which most people don't attend. The school feels pretty small actually because we do most things with our CBL/CC groups which have 10 people in them. There are usually only a few CBL groups scheduled in the pracs (labs) at any one time so it never seems very big at all actually. The small CBL/CC groups allow for a lot of individual attention from the physician tutors (10:1) and are great!

 

[drvfedorov]

okay thanks for the clarification. From my understanding schools like the Syd offer programs (Pacific bridge) where they allow international students to take core electives in US/CAN, does UQ have something similar?

 

[mcat_taker]

okay thanks for the clarification. From my understanding schools like the Syd offer programs (Pacific bridge) where they allow international students to take core electives in US/CAN, does UQ have something similar?

If you are in the UQ-O program you do all your electives in the U.S. in years 3-4. Not sure how it works for the traditional 4 year UQ program since I'm in UQ-O. I think you have the option to do electives at Ochsner and in Canada but I'm not sure how many.

 

[Bangsar]

If you are in the UQ-O program you do all your electives in the U.S. in years 3-4. Not sure how it works for the traditional 4 year UQ program since I'm in UQ-O. I think you have the option to do electives at Ochsner and in Canada but I'm not sure how many.

UQ has no core overseas rotations but 4 elective overseas rotations. Their matching rate for Canadians are 73% .

 

[Kakaonkaka]

UQ has no core overseas rotations but 4 elective overseas rotations. Their matching rate for Canadians are 73% .

Do you have more info in regards to match? As in diff years/what specialties? Thanks in advance.

 

[simbathelion]

There are tons of posts already on this. Read stuff I have posted along with Pitman and a few others that actually attend or have attended. The 12:1 is wrong even in first year. First year you don't do clinical visits, you do clinical coaching (which is the same group as your CBL group) and CBL. The biggest CBL groups are 10 people (mine this year and last year was 9). Second year, they split the CBL group in half for clinical coaching visits - which are done in hospital where you see patients. The misinformation is rampant, which I don't quite understand. I have said it before, there are tons of legitimate things to complain about just like any medical school, but some of the stuff I see people write is just completely false. Class size is ~500, but they break up all of the non-lecture stuff into smaller groups of 50 or so. You don't have to attend lecture if you don't want to. 95% of them are recorded and/or have slides posted.

Hey there I'm a first year. Just a few questions: How many clinical coaching visits do you do each semester in Year 2?
Do you still have "regular" clinical coaching classes?
Also do all Year 2 CBLs do CBL classes in their clinical hospital or are some still located at St Lucia?

Thanks

 

[sean80439]

Hey there I'm a first year. Just a few questions: How many clinical coaching visits do you do each semester in Year 2?
Do you still have "regular" clinical coaching classes?
Also do all Year 2 CBLs do CBL classes in their clinical hospital or are some still located at St Lucia?

Thanks

For clinical coaching we had I think ~25 visits at the hospital (mine was RBWH) for the whole year, usually once per week with a few skipped here and there due to the way breaks were included. I think we have maybe 2 left? They split your CBL in half for CC so its only 4-5 of you per group. All of the CBLs are at either Mater, UQ Health Sciences (RBWH) on the 2nd floor, or the TRI (PA) on the 2nd floor. There are no 'regular' clinical coaching classes anymore. You are expected to be able to perform the exams at least in a terrible rudimentary fashion usually with help the first few times until you get the hang of it. We do have OSCEs coming up at the beginning of October, which means you will see all of us performing the exams on each other if you wander around either the UQHS or TRI in the next few weeks. The only exams they don't teach you that you need to know are endocrine and diabetic foot, which are both done in Y2 in a single 2 hour course. There is basically no reason to be at St Lucia anymore unless you want to go to lecture, with the exception taking exams or dropping paperwork off.