So I'm back from my winter holiday and have had a week of lectures which was an introduction to Specialties and Acute and Critical Care Medicine. Essentially how this year works is that I will go through 4 core rotations: Acute and Critical Care Medicine, Specialties, Community and Palliative Care, and General Care Medicine. Each core is about 8 weeks each. Within each core there will be sub-attachments/sub-specialties. Anyways I'm starting with Acute and Critical Care Medicine and my first 4 weeks will be in Critical Care so I will be getting to know the anaesthetists! Then my next 4 weeks will be in A&E/ED (emergency department). I am quite excited about this year as this year is quite focussed on specialties and I will have plenty of opportunities to be in theatre this year. Yay!
To give you an idea what sort of lectures we had this week - we went through topics in Urology, Opthamology, Haematology, Anaesthetics, Dermatology, Trauma, Oncology, Infectious Diseases, and ENT. To be fair, covering all of that in 5 days was ambitious and tiring. It just stresses the importance for you to go home and do some extra reading before you go into that specialty placement as a 1 hour lecture is not going to cover enough for you to get through the placement. Because of this, I spent my weekend reading up on Anaesthetics and Critical Care. In a way I am really excited for this attachment as I am placed in the main hospital and it is quite busy so I know I will be able to get a lot of hands-on experience instead of swivelling in my chair. I also spent the weekend trying to get as much sleep as I can (12 hours today!) as I'm starting at 8 am every day. I felt a bit of me cry, but at the same time if it's a good attachment I don't see waking up being an issue.
Hmmm....to be honest there isn't much to talk about from this week as it was really dull and I won't bore you with the details. Hopefully next week will be action-packed and hopefully can give you all a more exciting read!
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Hey, fellow Canadian over here! I really enjoy reading your blog, and it is quite an inspiration to me. I am currently in high school and I would like to go to the UK for med school. I had some questions and was hoping you could help me out!
ReplyDelete-Did you have to fly over for your interviews with med schools?
-Did you face any issues coming from a Canadian education (like feeling unprepared?).
-What do you plan to do once you have graduated?
Do you plan to return to Canada for you residency (I was hoping to return but I have been reading quite a bit of articles stating that it is very hard to IMGs to get Canadian residencies) And if you do plan on staying in the UK will you be able to continue your post grad education (you mentioned concerns about not be able to)
Sorry if I have bombarded you with lots of questions! It's just I have worries about going international. Thanks a lot!!
Hi Dareen,
Delete1. Yes I had to fly over for my interviews, but I was lucky that my interviews somehow fell within the same week so it saved me flying more than once.
2. I would say in a way there were a few challenges. I found that our biology education isn't up to par to A level biology. It wasn't much of a struggle though. Just had to work a bit harder. Other than that issue, it was a fairly smooth transition.
3. I plan to stay in the UK and do my foundation years here. I'm also hoping to specialize here as well as I've gotten to know quite a few consultants who are actually really great mentors so I've been getting really good advice from them. If I went back to Canada to work, I will have no mentors or really don't have anyone to go to for advice. It isn't "hard" for IMGs and being a Canadian citizen, we are a bit more "advantaged" over pure IMGs. The biggest down side is the fact we have to sign a contract to work in the rural areas - no thanks and not that desperate to come back!
Hope that helps.