withinton to hope hospital--help!

[laladedah]

hiya, i just finished the three years in st andrews and will be heading down to manchester in september. i'll be living in withington but will going to salford/hope for my base hospital--thing is, i have no idea how to get there or how long will it take!? anybody care to fill me in? cheers x

[chunky.saj]

well if u have no car then u have to go to town by bus which is one bus from any stop on the main road which heads straight to manchester centre (this takes about 40 mins) then u need to take a tram to eccles which takes another 30 minsish the hospital is right near the tram stop.

If u have a car it is a hell of a lot easier just head towards manc centre and take the M60 ring road anticlockwise (west) to salford. should take 45mins.

[motherfcuker]

I have been at Hope for the past 2 years and it has never taken me that long to get there from Withington!! Ever!

Driving in rush hour, it might take half an hour...

Outside of rush hour you can be there in 15 mins. The buses into town can be a bit dodgy from Withington time wise (maybe 30 mins if traffic is bad) but the tram/bus only takes about 10 mins or so. Easy to do the trip within the hour.

[DH2005]

Do Manchester students spend the whole of their clinical years at the same teaching hospital?

[j00ni]

The same base hospital (ie Preston, Hope, MRI or Wythenshawe) yes. However for each you will probably spend an amount of time at various attached DGHs. I think I am right in saying that MRI students also get neurology teaching at Hope, but motherfcuker could probably be better placed to say if i'm correct on this

[DH2005]

Cheers for that.

So, what proportion of the clinical course is spent at the base hospital, and what proportion is spent at the DGHs? Are the DGHs all within a sensible distance of their base hospital?

[j00ni]

Depends entirely on the BH, so I can only speak for Preston, where about 80% of the teaching is at Royal Preston (base), with the majority of the rest at Chorley and District DGH (about 20mins by car/free shuttle service), and some further at Blackpool Vic , Blackburn QPH and Burnley DGH (all about 30-45 mins away)

[DH2005]

Do clinical students based at Preston live *in* Preston? I hear terrific things about the teaching hospital there, but I'm not sure that I fancy the idea of living in Preston for three years... or is it not so bad?

Moreover, how often is it necessary for clinical students to go to the Stopford?

[j00ni]

Yeah most of us do live in or around Preston, though a fair few commute from Manchester and seem to cope ok (though all have cars and I would say it would be nigh on impossible to commute via public transport every day).

Preston as a city is no Manchester, somewhat obviously, though there are some good nights out to be had, and with UCLan expanding it is getting more lively. It's also not exactly a long journey back to Manchester.

I think that most people would agree that the teaching at Preston is better than all the other base hospitals, it is a much smaller, closely-knit group of people and by-and-large we all tend to get on. I have made far more good friends on the course since being here than I ever did in pre-clinical.

I have written a lot more about the advantages of Preston here: which base hospital (coming from St A's)?

[DH2005]

Thanks. That's very useful.

Do I understand the written bumf correctly - that I'm going to have to choose my clinical base hospital after the first year? What opportunity will I have had to see which hospitals I favour?

Also, do most clinical students become House Officers at their base hospital?