To Moderators/Ottawa Med Students: A Day in the Life??

[Guest Mikey59]

I was wondering if you could help some of us prospective students by describing a typical day at Ottawa (at least during the basic science years)? From their website and info in the interview packet, I can appreciate the curriculum components, but don't quite have a feel for how everything meshes together.

 

Some other questions I've been wondering about:

-When is your first patient contact?

-Do you learn physical exam components as you go through each organ system in PBL/lecture?

- How are lectures balanced with PBL? Are you in group lectures every day? Is PBL every day?

 

 

I'm really excited about my interview at Ottawa and I appreciate any assistance in learning more about the school.

[Guest UOMeds05]

Hey Mikey,

 

You will get a lot of this info at the information session the day of your interview... but here it is in a nutshell. It is easier to give you a typical week...

 

On Monday you have PBL#1 where you are presented with the problem of the week (usual Mr. or Mrs. so and so presents with this, this and that in your office. On examination you find this. The lab results show this. There are often x-rays, CTs, MRIs etc). this is about 1.5 - 2h long. Usually have lectures (english or french) following and often on Mondays have the afternoon as "Protected Study Time" (ie: go home and sleep or whatever tickles your fancy). Tuesday, lectures in the morning and PSD (Physician Skills Development). This is where you learn to take a patient history and do the physical exam. So you get patient contact in the first week of school and almost every week thereafter. You learn the majority of the PE in first year in a sort of "get your feet wet" kind of manner and then really get into some of the details in second year. Wednesday typically is lectures, anatomy, histology and pathology labs. Thursday morning lectures, afternoon is I&PH (Individual and Population Health). Pretty neat series that runs for 3 hours every week and counts for 10% of every exam. The title basically describes it, but in first year there is a lot of stats stuff, with some patients and their families coming in to talk about coping with illness. In all pretty cool class. Friday morning is PBL#2 where you are back in your small groups and rehash the problem of the week discussing all of the research and your findings that you did throughout the week. It is 3 hours long. Friday afternoon is left free for electives. Again, direct patient contact. This is time set aside for you to set up your own elective (basically job-shadowing) with a specialist/family doc of your liking to see what they do, practice your skills etc.

 

So in a big nutshell, i guess, that is the idea. That may not be the exact order (Eg: you may get elective time on Wednesday instead of Friday) but those are the components of the week. there are often workshops and seminars slotted in there as well as Evidence Based Medicine seminars.

 

Hope that this helps. Continued good luck with the interviews.