St Georges GEP v Swansea GEM

[Arch_Angel]

Just to throw in my tuppence, LOCS are essentially placements that last for about 3 hours that you can do at anytime regardless of your level of knowledge or skill as long as they are available (eg. you can be in surgery or A&E as soon as your hep B clears).

Swansea also isn't crowded (and umm....doesn't smell) and has a nice bit of coast, and accom is cheap and overly available. There's practically no union though, so you'll find yourself in pubs and in town more often than on campus.

That said, the change in the course means that you'll be there for 4 years (where as I'll be going to Cardiff in year 3 - biggest union in the UK I'm told) and the city isn't all that big and the course is (I think) the smallest medical school (with 70 in each year and only 2 years at the moment).

Then again, those may be positives.

Any more info let me know...

[auden]

I'm in my final year of the SGUL GEP and have to say I've both enjoyed it and found it suited my needs in terms of learning - exams have gone well and I have an academic job for next year, finals permitting

PBL is something which either suits you or it doesn't; if you don't think you'll enjoy working in a group of eight twice a week all term for two years then don't come here Clinical placements are very varied, as I'm sure they are everywhere - personally I've mainly been placed away from georges, which has suited me well as I prefer the atmosphere of the smaller DGH's vs the teaching hospital (more friendly, more consultant interest in you and teaching you, more opportunities to get involved in A&E etc as fewer students).

One thing I would improve if I had my way is the pastoral support which can be a bit patchy if things are not going well. But that's a minor niggle. Overall I've loved it and would come here again if given the same choices I had in '05 (Notts/Georges/Kings).

[FlyingDutchman]

Remember there is more to PBL than just the PBL sessions. Properly, PBL is an educational ideology that perfuses the whole course. There are legitimate criticisms of PBL and some places do it better than others. For example, PBL may entail not providing a proper timetable or curriculum because adapting to this enables you to 'cope with uncertainty', however it also enables enables lack of organisation by the faculty. Read around. Nottingham and Swansea seem to do this well.

[Nurse_to_doctor]

Hi,

Flying' is right. Done well, PBL is a great learning tool. Done badly and it can be a rather irritating teaching 'fad'.

When I did the DipHE in nursing, we would go away to gain information (me in the library and they anywhere other – typically in the refractory chatting and drinking coffee/eating sweeties) and then my fellow students would come back with either an obviously rushed hand-written A4 sheet of paper or more commonly 3 pages of text that had different fonts all through it (implying a cut n’ paste job from the internet - wikipedia et al). Getting it right was then down to me.

When I transferred in my third year to the degree (20 of us out of 240 students) it was a considerable difference in attitude and quality of output. We all pulled together, worked in the library, chatted about the topic in the refractory and got some really top-rate work done. It became a case of not wanting to let your team (is that the right term?) down. It worked and the topic under investigation was covered over the week – the tutor was also very good, facilitating a smooth learning experience.

I should imagine that mature students on a medical degree would be highly motivated to make PBL work. Well, I hope that this would be the case...

[runnerbean]

Thanks for all the input guys. Very much appreciated. Its nice to get some other perspectives on this.

I spent the weekend in Swansea to get an idea of the place more as I only know the Gower well. Figure I love the coast but not sure I would be happy living in Swansea itself plus it seems most people are quite a lot older or teens/ early twenties and there are few people in the 25-35 bracket so suspect i'd be a bit lonely there, me being 30 next year! THink PBL may be better for me as an arts student too. Still deciding but swayed to Georges at the mo

cheers
x

[FlyingDutchman]

The bottom line is get a place, grit your teeth and get through it, however:

Don't be silly, you can't choose a course on the grounds of age, especially GEP - it is not as if you will be surrounded by 100s of 18 year olds, hyperthyroidal at not having to keep their bedrooms tidy.

You also can't choose a course because you think that PBL is more suited to arts graduates - it isn't. It means you probably don't understand what PBL entails fully (most don't) and you are not ready to make the choice. More importantly, it depends on your natural style of learning. If you tend to be a more analytical and self-directed thinker, then you might find a pure PBL course very frustrating.

More importantly, you need to know which is the crappier medical school. This information is not included in the prospectuses, but there are clues. Look for student discontent, medical school resources, finances, quality of teaching, course organisation and attitude to students. If you do this, you will know the answer. Remember, you have 4 years of it, so take your time choosing.

[runnerbean]

Thanks for the post but there was no need for the insults flyingdutchman.

My view on PBL is a personal one based on plenty of reading on the subject, my own experience and talking to those who have done it. You dont have to agree with me! I am certainly not choosing a course based solely on age groups and I have plenty of younger friends too - its just one aspect of the decision.

[jeevesbert]

I've got the same choice myself (plus Barts) so this is really interesting for me. Contrary to runnerbean I'm veering towards Swansea (think I'd find PBL frustrating and from what I've seen/heard Georges seems quite disorganised) but would be great to hear anyone elses opinions!

Thanks

[FlyingDutchman]

Thanks for the post but there was no need for the insults flyingdutchman.

My view on PBL is a personal one based on plenty of reading on the subject, my own experience and talking to those who have done it. You dont have to agree with me! I am certainly not choosing a course based solely on age groups and I have plenty of younger friends too - its just one aspect of the decision.

Sorry, I did not mean to be insulting.

Problem Based Learning is a marketing term for an educational system and ideology. It is based on Constructivism, and seems to be sold on the open market as packaged medical courses. I think the course at St Georges was bought from Flinders in Australia and in turn seems to have been used as the basis for the course at Nottingham (Derby) and maybe HYMS. I have heard that UCL are setting up a GEP course and that the former course director from St George's is involved in setting this up, though this is only hearsay.

There are certainly good aspects to PBL. I think the regular small group learning sessions are really beneficial: they promote good communication, working in teams, open discussion of different points of view, and of course a degree of self-directed learning. I believe there are some deficiencies in the 'pure' PBL system. Hence, depending on whether a PBL GEP course has been implemented pragmatically or dogmatically and combining this with the existing culture at an institution has a great affect on utility of the course.

Particularly, the PBL philosophy views the student as a kind of blank slate, which becomes moulded into an entity with certain attributes (the young doctor) by going through a process (the GEP course). It is a very controlling system, manifesting in such ways as not providing a syllabus or proper timetable, ostensibly so that the student learns to 'cope with uncertainty' (coping with uncertainty being on the tick list of desirable attributes). I am sceptical as to whether this actually enables one to 'cope with uncertainty' and the lack of syllabus and timetable must certainly be detrimental to study. The curriculum as it is exposed on a weekly basis can appear to be very disjointed. The emphasis is on learning basic sciences in the context of clinical cases, which is good, but there is no cohesion between the small slices of science covered so it is difficult to see the big picture.

Certainly traditional courses have their problems too. My own preference would be for a middle ground between the two, to combine the best aspects of both systems. Ignore the Constructivism (which is not supported by cognitive science) but keep the regular small group learning sessions and couple these with a moderate number of high quality lectures and early clinician-lead patient contact. A well defined syllabus, curriculum and timetable and a personal tutor are also essentials in my opinion.

[Arch_Angel]

I've got the same choice myself (plus Barts) so this is really interesting for me. Contrary to runnerbean I'm veering towards Swansea (think I'd find PBL frustrating and from what I've seen/heard Georges seems quite disorganised) but would be great to hear anyone elses opinions!

Thanks

If there's anything you want to ask about the course here (or the place) I'm happy to help.....

....that said it'll be changing quite a lot soon