"What needs improvement" comments

[Guest MDSMelissa]

Hello,

 

I'm not sure how many people read the Class of 2008 Discussion on the Queen's Meds 2007 page, but I just read this posting there, which outlined some "what needs improvement" comments from the Meds 2003 class. Here is the link to the page: p082.ezboard.com/fqueensmeds2007frm9.showMessage?topicID=23.topic

 

Any comments on this material from other current students would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Melissa

[Guest strider2004]

I actually read those comments earlier and had thought that they came from a disgruntled graduate of Queen's. Their class did not fare so well in the match last year (8 unmatched, we had 4 this year) so it may have come from one of those unmatched people.

As for competitiveness for during clerkship, I actually felt that we were at a competitive advantage over schools such as calgary and MacMaster (I was on elective in Calgary pediatrics and the attending said 'thank goodness you're from Queen's and not a 3 year program') Apparently we're more 'teachable' because we have a better grasp of clinical knowledge and first principles.

 

As for electives, we were also put at an advantage because of SARS(yes, that's right). The cancellations occured during our elective time and we were given extra elective time in August of 2003, right where it should have been. Most of my classmates seemed to have benefitted from that as we had a very high match success rate (<70% got 1st choice program, including myself). One comment that I made this year for the questionnaire was to push electives back to the summer or at least a small chunk of electives because it did help.

 

I guess a lot of our 'advantages' came because of slight changes to our program that the 2003 class did not have. One complaint was clerk school, a one week course that is supposed to 'prepare' you for clerkship. Previously, it had been 2 days of library work plus lots of lectures. THey compressed it in our year to 1hour of a librarian speaking to us, speeches from all the cheif residents, setting up our hospital computers accounts, and then 2 days of ACLS certification. This last bit was excellent because it means that we don't need to retrain before residency(according to the post-grad office).

 

There are always pros and cons to each program. I would have been nice to get more feedback about the positive things about Queen's clerkship. I found the environment quite nurturing which is one of the reasons why I'll be back here for residency in July.

[Guest MDSMelissa]

Thanks very much, Strider, for your reply. It is nice to know that there have been some changes that have made your experience more positive than some of the ones from the 2003 class. I noticed that there were a lot of negative comments about the ob/gyn and peds clerkship rotations. Are those problems still a concern for clerks?

 

Congratulations on getting your first choice match! May I ask what residency program you will be starting in July?

 

Thanks again,

Melissa

[Guest Lorae]

I got the impression that each point was a comment from one person's feedback form (meaning there were comments from many students). To me it didn't read like a long rant by one disgruntled student...

 

but whoever posted it should have also posted the positive comments!! I'm sure there's alot of positive aspects to the program and it does sound like they are working to fix some of the problems.

[Guest strider2004]

I'll be in Kingston doing Internal Medicine.

The OB/GYN rotation still has issues and some students are luck enough to do their rotation outside of Kingston. The attending staff are enthusiastic about teaching but th nursing staff are very protective and do not let students do very much. Some of the residents are also poorly looked upon because they have poor people skills - both with patients and students. The more recent residents are great though - very friendly. I'm just waiting for the old generation to leave.

 

Yeah, the comments are a compilation of all the students when they were asked what needed to be improved. Unfortunately noone posted what were the strengths.

[Guest Ian Wong]

Floating to the top...

 

Ian