Changes to first year bc of COVID

[ijustwantanmd 14]

Mac recently announced online classes in Fall, anyone have ideas how this will affect med students? I'm just wondering if the PBL stuff will still be in person

[MDLD 154]

I think PBL is unlikely seeing that the current med students are doing PBL online. 
 

 

[MrsAaronSamuels 33]

https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/2020/05/25/mcmaster-moves-fall-semester-online-amid-covid-19.html

"Health-care professional programs will be on campus, but can anticipate additional information from their programs."

It's obvious at this point that all med schools across Canada will be online, with a few exceptions for small group interactions. 

[JayKay 25]

I would wait for more info from the school. I anticipate to get that by mid June imo. 

[waterbottl 45]

Mac student here. Although this is speculation, it is likely the most of the fall will be online for first-year students. For c2022s, MF5 is completely online (until September 25th), after which there is great uncertainty in the direction the program wants to go. PBL, procomp, anatomy, and LGSs will all most likely be online. The only thing that is POSSIBLE, and has not even been decided on yet, is very small groups of students coming into learning spaces for clinical skills.

[JayKay 25]

1 hour ago, waterbottl said:

Mac student here. Although this is speculation, it is likely the most of the fall will be online for first-year students. For c2022s, MF5 is completely online (until September 25th), after which there is great uncertainty in the direction the program wants to go. PBL, procomp, anatomy, and LGSs will all most likely be online. The only thing that is POSSIBLE, and has not even been decided on yet, is very small groups of students coming into learning spaces for clinical skills.

What’s the general feeling about this? Your thoughts or what you guess the class feels as a whole 

[waterbottl 45]

6 hours ago, JayKay said:

What’s the general feeling about this? Your thoughts or what you guess the class feels as a whole 

I can't speak for all of the c2022 class, but my friends in c2022 definitely feel very frustrated about it. I guess the general feeling among them is that the education they're receiving is sub-what they were expecting to receive from medical school. Obviously some of that couldn't be helped because of the overwhelming nature of the situation, but there is definitely a general feeling of frustration and worry. The school is what they're doing they can to help, but obviously it might not be enough, especially in a PBL setting. It was also confirmed today in the c2022 townhall that PBL is definitely not going to be in person, and whatever there will be in person will be extremely limited in terms of its capacity to accommodate direct clinical skills learning. 

[Dr.Strange 18]

Basicallly get ready to be online for the foreseeable future, possibly into next year it has already been announced internally in the med school. I suggest thinking about your goals very carefuly and think internally what specialty you may want in the future because Mac will have limitations to decide in the clinical enviornment because of the nature of its 3 year program. 

There probably won't be shadowing oppurtunities (horizontals) before deciding specialities at McMaster compared to other schools, I suggest thinking long and hard. It's a shame because McMaster's 3 year program is normally very good but COVID is a wrecking ball.