Imperial or UCL?

[Gizmo says -]

Originally Posted by gimperial99

Lightelf unfortunately you are incorrect. You are certainly regarded more highly if you go to certain universities. For instance I do not think anyone would equate a UCL graduate with a Keele graduate.

and if you come across anyone wif views similar to this you should ignore them. the simplistic mind it teks to see the world like that is scary.

[agneishd]

don't think uni makes a difference to the weight of one's degree in med...

[gimperial99]

The reason you are regarded "more highly" is because of the image of the university you're in, not cuz you're some kind of a god.

I am not debating the wrongs or rights of it, its just fact. If a rich man goes into a bank he does not have to queue up. If a poor man goes in he does. Wrong in my opinion, buts its fact. I know MANY, MANY consultants who do take the uni someone graduated from into consideration when deciding on jobs. It is one of many factors. To pretend we live in some utopia where people are completely unbiased is not the reality I see everyday as a doctor.

It is more important HOW WELL you study and put the work in, not which uni you come from.

So what is the point of going to university if their teaching is completely irrelevant? I will give you a good example. At Imperial the anatomy you will be taught is rubbish. If you went to Guys you would be taught anatomy by Harold Ellis, and would receive a much higher standard of teaching. I am an Imperial graduate, and have had friends who have done demonstrating at both institutions, and all agree Imperial students on the whole are very poor on anatomy.

A doctor's purpose is to help those in need of medical help, not showing off to others how "smart" you are based on which uni you're from.

As I have said above, different universities have different qualities of teaching. Do you honestly believe that the standard of teaching is exactly the same at all unis? One of the good things about Imperial is they do not really tolerate failure and will kick you out in an instant, compared to many unis who would say let you retake.

Well if what you say is true, that you become a better doctor when you graduate from a high-ranking uni, then ALL the doctors from "low-rank" unis would starve to death cuz they'd suck at medicine!

I think you would be truly shocked by some of the foreign graduates who are employed in the NHS as we speak.

Any uni can produce good doctors. It all depends on the student's motivation to study to help others in need of medical care.

I do not disagree that any university can produce a good doctor. I know many good doctors from universities with a "lower rank". But you have to accept that a university with better teaching will on the whole produce better doctors. I know colleagues from Imperial with good anatomy knowledge, but in general Imperial graduates have a very poor knowledge of anatomy.

Gosh...who or what gives you the right to call a uni "rubbish"? If only the few high-ranking unis produce good doctors, and the rest are all rubbish, medical care would suck across most of the entire world.

I am sorry but this is the truth. If you went to Cambridge it would be harder to rank in the upper quartile than say at Keele. Do you disagree with this?

I know you are clearly a socialist, but yes like everything in life there is a spectrum of quality of doctors, not everyone is good.

[gimperial99]

Originally Posted by agneishd

don't think uni makes a difference to the weight of one's degree in med...

As a doctor you have to practice evidence based medicine. Where is the EVIDENCE for this statement?

[alex MD]

To be honest, your gonna get a good degree from pretty much any medical school in the UK! Okay gimperial, I do see your point about there being deviation's in graduates but on the whole everyone is taught to a high standard that should allow them to safely practice medicine, 'should' being the key word as not everyone will be, but that's more the person than the university that trained them. You could get a graduate from Cambridge who is not as good a doctor as a Keele graduate; you can only compare universities to a point, then the individual's abilities take over. On a slightly different note, earlier in the thread did you mention that QMW (Barts?) was slightly dubious (I may have misinterpreted what you said, so apologies if I did)? Because isn't it one of the best in the UK?!

[gimperial99]

Alex MD I agree with your points. You can get bad docs from any uni just as you can get good doctors from any uni. When I applied to medical school (a while ago I give you that ) QMW was the joke uni that everyone used as their insurance. I would highly doubt that it was really one of the best, but I am sure it is quite good compared to some of the newer so called medical schools.

The other thing I think a lot of people forget is that medical schools effectively set their own finals exams, and I know for sure the quality of these have been decreasing at all universities. One thing I would definitely be in favour of is a common final MBBS exam for all universities. Believe me the difference just in London between the unis is quite big, so I shudder to imagine what the exams are likely at some of these newer places.

[alex MD]

Kk, apologies for misinterpreting your point ! Btw, you've never heard of any Leicester med school horror stories have you?

[alex MD]

Sorry for double posting but I just read the final bit of your post; I didn't know uni's set their own finals! I definitely agree that there should be one final exam, otherwise uni's may (and perhaps do) set exams that cover the strength's of their students rather than the weaknesses in order for their students to pass? Perhaps that assumption is a little bit extreme but not impossible.

[LightElf7]

Originally Posted by gimperial99

I am not debating the wrongs or rights of it, its just fact. If a rich man goes into a bank he does not have to queue up. If a poor man goes in he does. Wrong in my opinion, buts its fact. I know MANY, MANY consultants who do take the uni someone graduated from into consideration when deciding on jobs. It is one of many factors. To pretend we live in some utopia where people are completely unbiased is not the reality I see everyday as a doctor.

True, thats the reality we live in. My point is though, the extent the name/image of your university can bring you has its limits. After that, it all depends on personal ability, which only comes if you put the work in.

So what is the point of going to university if their teaching is completely irrelevant? I will give you a good example. At Imperial the anatomy you will be taught is rubbish. If you went to Guys you would be taught anatomy by Harold Ellis, and would receive a much higher standard of teaching. I am an Imperial graduate, and have had friends who have done demonstrating at both institutions, and all agree Imperial students on the whole are very poor on anatomy.

hmm...but if you suck at anatomy, Imperial wouldnt have legal permission from GMC to teach Medicine would it? I mean, not knowing anatomy is like not knowing how the human body looks and works on the surface. Well each to their own on that, but although you may have, from your experience, seen that Guy's graduates performed better on anatomy, you cannot really generalize that onto the entire college. You are, after all, not supposed to be spoon-fed in college as you were in highschol, but rely a lot on independent studying.

As I have said above, different universities have different qualities of teaching. Do you honestly believe that the standard of teaching is exactly the same at all unis? One of the good things about Imperial is they do not really tolerate failure and will kick you out in an instant, compared to many unis who would say let you retake.

Right, different universities may have different qualities of teaching, but most of your future career depends on you yourself, and if you lets say are in a uni where the teaching quality sucks, you have to work that much harder to compensate for it. I had a messed up Biology teacher at highschool, because of whom most of my classmates failed the course, so I worked that much harder at home during self-study so I could understand the stuff without being too much dependent on my teacher.

I think you would be truly shocked by some of the foreign graduates who are employed in the NHS as we speak.

Well, there are enough countries in the world, whose universities dont even rank in the top 100 in the world, but still have very advanced technology/medical care quality etc etc which certainly does not fall behind others.

I do not disagree that any university can produce a good doctor. I know many good doctors from universities with a "lower rank". But you have to accept that a university with better teaching will on the whole produce better doctors. I know colleagues from Imperial with good anatomy knowledge, but in general Imperial graduates have a very poor knowledge of anatomy.

If you are too dependent on your university, then yes, you will become a good or a bad doctor depending on how they teach fits you. But if you want to be a doctor, you have to become more independent, and as I said before, if your teacher sucks (e.g. my bio teacher only talked and talked and talked...didnt give out any notes, papers whatsoever) you just gotta get over it. I am not saying that you are completely wrong, its just that if you work hard and are determined to become a good doctor, you will succeed wherever you go and be ready to overcome problems yourself, whereas most others will blame it on their uni.

I know you are clearly a socialist, but yes like everything in life there is a spectrum of quality of doctors, not everyone is good.

Sure, not everyone is good, and it depends on your personal ability to learn and cope with studying medicine, it should not be dependent too much on your uni. You could get the best teaching professor in the world for learning Biochemistry at a "low rank" university as well as get the worst teacher ever for it at a "high rank" university. The point Im trying to make is that you have to have the flexibility to cope with both "good" and "bad" teaching, which you can get at any uni and compensate. Teaching after all, depends on the person teaching it, not the university.

[agneishd]

Originally Posted by gimperial99

As a doctor you have to practice evidence based medicine. Where is the EVIDENCE for this statement?

mainly 'cause other factors such as research, publications, references etc. are taken into consideration as opposed whether you went to imperial or leeds or soton or wherever