Medicine Degree how much is rote learning

[HereIGoAgainAndAgain]

DS is in yr 12 and working towards medicine, doing voluntary work at care home and with teenage children. However, despite his love of all the sciences and a genuine interest in how the body works he is really concerned that studying medicine at Uni will mostly be spent rote learning all the vast amount of information they have to learn and so very little time will be given to problem solving using your scientific knowledge. Love to hear from those of you with any knowledge on this.

Harry thank you so much for a very informative post, DS is definitely someone that wants to understand everything rather than just memorizing, hence if there isn't the time for the former than he's not sure he could face 5/6 years of the later!!

Most (all) medical schools run outreach activities that give school/college students some opportunity to find out a bit more about what studying medicine is like. do you know whether anyone comes into his school, or arranges visits to a medical school? If not, there are lots of events run by hospital trusts and by organizations like Medic Mentors and the Medic Portal where you can find out more. Most of the speakers at these events are current medical students or recent medical graduates, so they can give a genuine account of how they are/were expected to learn.

Has he been to an open day and talked to current medical students about what their course is like? What part of the country are you in?

I'd be wary of seeing PBL as the answer.

I did a PBL based allied health professional degree years ago at Nottingham and ime it was still largely rote learning. So there would be a problem set, the cohort would break it down into different sections and each person or group would go and research their topic and come back and present it to the group.

It was pain. You'd learn loads about your section, you'd rely on other people pulling their finger out to teach you the right stuff about the other sections. Tests/exams at the end of the semester were still traditional exams with massive amount of cramming.

Afaik most med schools have moved away from PBL as it's hated so much. St George's is the one I know of which still does PBL and is the only med school 2 years ago which had places in clearing. Medicine applicants tend to avoid it and the reason I see talked about on the Student Room forums is because of its PBL reputation.

We will be visiting medical schools this summer, he has also applied for summer schools via sutton trust and UNIQ (although he appreciates how difficult they are to get on).

DS attends a rural comp and there are no visits by medics, but like I said upthread he has applied for work experience at a local hospital and to showdow a GP, so hopefully something might come of that.

It's an excellent set of questions, OP.
My best recommendation is that your son ASKS the students he meets at open days, about how rote the learning is. They can tell you with far more reliability than anyone else can.

I find when interviewing applicants that many mention 'surprising' or uncomfortable things that happened to them on WE. Most don't have a rote experience at all.

@NicoAndTheNiners - I'm sorry you had such a negative experience of PBL. Your description of how it worked on your course is a very clear example of exactly how it is NOT supposed to be done. The whole point is that all students research all topics and discuss their findings, not that everyone in the group is dependent on one other student for all of their learning about one topic.

There are several medical schools that use PBL (Barts, Cardiff, Glasgow, Hull York, Keele, Lancaster, Manchester, Norwich, Plymouth, St George's, Sunderland, Warwick), although they use it in different ways and at different points in their courses.

St George's made a conscious decision to use clearing to pick up academically strong students who hadn't got offers elsewhere - a kind of back-door post-qualification application - rather than because they had any more difficulty than several other medical schools in filling their places. (I don't work at St George's, by the way.)

The most common reason for students to avoid a medical school is clinical placements' being too remote and isolating, which particularly affects schools in London. I don't think PBL is a major reason for prospective students to avoid St George's, as the first two years are mostly lecture-based with PBL a relatively minor component, although it becomes a bit more significant in the later years.

@HereIGoAgainAndAgain - Health Education England and the Medical Schools Council are particularly focusing on establishing contacts between medical schools and schools/colleges in areas that are currently "cold spots". They are running summer schools this year for this precise purpose. Also, medical schools themselves should be making efforts to reach schools that don't currently get any input.

I'd be wary of relying on shadowing experiences for anything other than seeing the inside of a clinical workplace. If he does shadowing in a hospital I'd say it's far more important to get to talk to the junior doctors (the more junior the better) and medical students on placement than to watch what the consultant does.

Liverpool used to run a taster day which was fab and was £30. Worth checking if still on (was only 2 years ago). And def speak to the students and go on the tours that run on open days as give a real idea of what goes on. My DD has an integrated course with lots of hands on but not as much as Sheffield whose 1st years spent last week in surgery. Medicine has changed a lot in the last few years - UEA run communication sessions to improve bedside manner. If he wants to be a Dr then he needs to be able to knuckle down to the grind of the massive amounts of information they need to learn. But ethics and skills play a really important role as passing practical bits every year is vital. Good luck and apply strategically once UKCAT/BMAT is day as selection for interview is the crucial bit. Don't listen to gossip but check the up to date info - Bristol changed from PS heavy to fully UKCAT ranking this year which caught a few kids out.