Medicine 2023 Entry - Part 3

[opoponax]

Anyone out there with DC applying or reapplying for Medicine 2023, please join a friendly thread for mutual support and useful advice.

PS it's no better as a mum of a 5th year. Hope it's all changed for your kids.

Agree with @mumsneedwine that it's a long old degree and providing you get your A level grades under your belt, getting an offer this year is not the be all and end all (but missed grades unfortunately can be) so try not to let offers or lack thereof loom too large in your dcs' life-planning. (So speaks a parent with the luxury of hindsight.)

I also agree with mumneeds that there's a whole lot wrong with the current system. Ds2's final year stress is not helped in that where F1 medics end up living and working is basically a lottery. Deanery applications are based on guesswork as to what score they might get on the very random situational judgement test. It makes their original tactical med school applications feel so straightforward!

I think though that ds would still says it's all worth it. Despite all the negative press about the dire straits of the NHS, doctors' strikes etc it's still an exciting, challenging and rewarding career. Talking about being an F1 doctor very soon ds says that apart from freaking out that it's actually real, he is looking forward to working and feels well-prepared to do the job. Having intercalated he has lots of friends ahead of him and every one so far is doing well, has no regrets and enjoys being a doctor.

@Haffdonga think my DD would agree with all of that. Although after the UKFPO balls up this week I don't think she's v keen on them !
Be nice to know where she'll be living in July.

Oh yes to that!
Good luck to your dd. I hope she gets what she wants. Ds just couldn't make his mind up between several totally random parts of the UK so hopefully he'll be fine with wherever.

@Haffdonga DD v pragmatic. Says she's going to enjoy the adventure where ever she lands. But a beach would be nice 😂

Why do they have to apply without knowing their stj marks? Feels like bmat all over again. Surely that can’t be best or most efficient for anyone? But I’m guessing that point has been made..:: wishing all best to the final year dcs ….

A theory is that the unknown SJT score is a deliberately randomising factor in the student's final overall level. The unpredicatability prevents all the 'best' (highest ranked) students ending up in London and at prestigious teaching hospitals and instead scatters the higher and lower achievers around the country more evenly.
I can't think of any other good reason for the literally random SJT scores to be weighted SO heavily (50%!!) against the exam grades a student has achieved over 5 years of hard hard study.

It’s incredible….

And even the exam part has no sense. They are rated against the students at their Uni only. Some use 2 exams to do this, some do it over 3 years and 10 exams. So not an accurate comparison.

It is all changing ! No one sure how yet though.

When will your DC know where they are going @mumsneedwine and @Haffdonga ?

@Monkey2001 it's supposed to be week after next. With their SJT scores. But they inadvertently got those last week. With no explanation and the scoring has changed so they have no idea what they mean. All a bit of a cock up. In the middle of finals.

Yes, I saw some posts about that on Reddit, with some comments about how, when a student gets something wrong there is a zero tolerance approach, but when the UKFPO muck up there is not even an apology!

Yup. FKPO are not v popular !

Enjoying that FKPO Freudian slip

Amazing you are supporting us all when your own dcs are going through their own stressful times. Thank you! We can only dream we will be facing the same challenges in a few years as it means our dcs have met their dream in getting into Med school….

@Thethingswedoforlove I hope yours don't have the same issues and they've sorted out a fairer system. Thankfully I think our 5th years have been through so much they are pretty used to it.
Hope lots more offers come through this week.

As a follow-on about assessments, just curious about views on this setup....

DD's uni started giving everyone from 1st year up, the '5th year exam'. So, 3 times a year all medical students do the same computer-based multiple choice exam of 100 questions in 2 hours.

Now, the rationale is for students to show progression over the 5 years, and since the average mark for 1st years is in the low 30's, that should be the case.

Im a bit 'meh' about it tbh - according to my DD, who has always been very motivated to achieve, what is happening is a lot of her peers are teaching themselves modules from years 3-5 to get good scores!! What is going on? Is this normal practice elsewhere?

@Millylovespuddles that is very weird ! Not sure how that works as 5th year is all rotations so all clinical stuff. Nothing really to do with the biochem and anatomy of the first year. Does yours have PassMed ? Seems wrong to need it that early though. First year clinical stuff seemed to be taking a history and doing an exam or two.

Bristol? Ds1 is there and they do this (not sure if it's 3 times a year though). He wholeheartedly embraced the advice that he should not do any study at all for the first exam and that it doesn't count towards anything except as a benchmark to measure your own future progress. (But then he's a cynical postgrad). However I guess anyone prepping for future subjects in advance will be at some advantage down the line when they do 'meet' those topics.
Ds2's advice is that you can never do enough pre-study in medicine and waiting for exam season to start revision is a mistake so I guess the uni is getting them into this mindset.

But aren't they prescribing and giving correct procedures and treatments in 5th year ? How can they possibly know that in first few years. I can see the advantages of spaced learning (I am a teacher after all), but can see how demoralising it could be to get very low marks.
I'd just tell DD to rock up, sit exam and then just look at where went wrong and try and learn that. No point revising modules you'll be taught later on - to much other stuff to cram in.

@Haffdonga no, QUB. My guess is it doesn't suit a lot of kids who like to study hard for an exam and get a good result - from 2nd year on, these progress tests count towards the overall final score. So for a high-achiever (like a lot of our dc) she feels she has no option but to put extra effort in now to get a well placed degree. I'm sure the advice given would have been the same - ie, just do what you can and watch the progress. I feel it's a handy option for the tutors, and pretty demoralising for those used to getting 90+!

As you say, this will ultimately help in the long-run, but for those who flop out of bed and select all A's, there is the chance they will do equally as well. Seems strange to me, but hey, I guess I have to trust in the system.

The point of progress testing is that it gives a measurable indicator of progression, which you can't get if you do different assessments in each year.

We did a trial with it a few years ago and felt the the demoralisation resulting from getting very low marks in the early years would cause more problems than the absence of a quantifiable progression indicator. It is possible to combine a progress test with a year-specific exam, but not if you're doing the progress test multiple times per year.

Not sure whether the introduction of the medical licensing assessment (MLA) will push more medical schools towards progress testing.

Not sure how that works as 5th year is all rotations so all clinical stuff. Nothing really to do with the biochem and anatomy of the first year.

Anatomy never stops being relevant, although questions should focus on anatomical details that are relevant to clinical situations (e.g. if a patient has lost these sensations and these motor functions, what nerve is damaged or at what level of the spinal cord has an injury occurred?). For other basic science content, like biochemistry, progress testing is supposed to be combined with a curriuculum-design approach that makes all of the basic science content directly relevant to clinical scenarios. Quite hard to do, but not impossible. What doesn't work is teaching straight academic biochemistry and then assessing with questions based on clinical scenarios: if you do that, students just don't learn the biochemistry because they know it won't be assessed.

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne thanks for your perspective.... guess I'm just curious if it is a widely used assessment tool.
It gets the thumbs down from me!