King's Problems / Questions

[fkm]

Folks, stalling on an offer from King's based on the following which you may be able to shed some light on!!!


1. Very Large Class Size.
Lectures have 360/400, clinicals around 100 and tutorials comprise 8-20 students. I've also heard of problems with clinical group's being too large. I'm a graduate and must admit that overall such a large cohort could impact on teaching compared to a smaller class size. For existing students or those that have heard from firsthand experience, what would you say regarding class sizes and their effect?

2. Lack of Preparedness for Practice for Qualifying Students.
The King's website has a page which outlines (last paragraph - http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/medicine...ug-studies.htm ) some publicity in 2003 that claimed that qualifiying students were not adequately prepared for practice. By their own admission, King's indicated that some elements of their curriculum would need to be changed while maintaing that they felt their students were adequately trained for clinical practice (hardly say the opposite would they!!!). Does anyone know what the status is on this problem and if it has been addressed? Is this a problem perceived by many hospitals and which could impact your scheme/job prospects down the line?

3. Reputation.
Finally, I am a foreign student and would appreciate if you could let me know where King's stands in terms of reputation/quality of teaching compared to other medical schools in the UK. Guardian ranked it 9th while others ranked it lower. Don't be biased !!! For those who know the Irish medical colleges, how does it compare to them?


Many thanks folks!

[Spencer Wells]

1. Most med schools, especially the London ones, have class sizes on this scale. Having such a large cohort won't effect things learning wise. You're spoonfed what you need to know (relative to other courses) and class size doesn't interfere with that.

2. There is much debate as to whether any med school really prepares you for clinical practice. GKT have excellent teaching hospitals with international reputations, so I really woudn't worry about job prospects, they're about as good as you can get from any medical school.

3. Compared to other medschools in London, GKT probably falls behind Imperial and UCL, but graduating from ANY London medschool will put you ahead of most any other school in the country. London has arguably the best teaching hospitals in the world, you can be confident that accepting King's offer is an excellent choice.

[chiggy]

Just to follow on from those comments I agree that Imperial and UCL have slighly better reputations but after going to the open day at King's everything seemed excellent with nice new large facilties like the lecture theatres and loads of nice, wellcoming students, and i think that the medical school's London Bridge setting gives a much more diverse and interesting area than maybe South Ken where Imperial is. Also, there aren't many hospitals more famous than Guy's and St Thomas' repuation wise and I have seen King's College Hospital apperaing a lot more now in the news reseearch wise like the man who was cured of diabetes recently was at King's. There can't be many better places to learn than in London so i would not worry.