Archive for the 'Medical Careers' Category
May 19th, 2010
Out with the old, in with the new. A new Government is in office and with it will come a whole range of fiscal changes. At the moment the waters are still murky, but what we can expect are tax rises and spending cuts as well as the already announced pay cut for public sector workers.
For students, there could be even more struggle and hardship just around the corner. The Russell Group, which represents 20 leading, research-intensive universities is advocating increasing the rate at which graduates pay off their loans as well as lowering the starting repayment level to below the current £15,000. For medical graduates, after studying for at least five years the average debt is almost £23,000. How on earth can graduates pay all this debt off at a higher rate of interest as well as paying rent, clearing overdrafts and generally living?
Putting your earnings in the right place is one of the most important factors. You have several options available to you from savings accounts and investments through to current accounts.
One of the first things to do as soon as you start working is to switch from your graduate account to a high-interest current account. Santander offer some good rates on current accounts at the moment. Their Zero current account, for example, gives you 5% AER on balances up to £2,500 for the first 12 months, 12.9% on your overdraft and no fees. All you have to do is deposit £1000 a month, and of course not exceed that £2,500 limit. This involves a certain amount of juggling between accounts, but alongside a savings account this is a great way of earning interest without paying for it.
If you can’t have more than £2,500 in the above account – and other banks operate in a similar way – you will need to transfer anything above this amount to another account, ideally a savings account. You need to look for one that offers flexibility. An ISA, is an Individual Savings Account that offers completely tax free saving. You won’t pay any tax on the interest you earn and you can generate a pretty decent rate of return. Each year, we are given an ISA allowance, which is currently £10,200. You cannot exceed this amount in any one year, but you can add up to this amount, so you don’t need to deposit the cash in one lump sum. Interest rates on many ISAs are around 3%, not a bad rate of return at all.
February 13th, 2010
The theory that writing about an experience helps you reflect and learn is being used for some medical students, reports the Arizona Daily Star. Med students are put through a blogging exercise when they first start to shadow medical profesionals in a hospital.
At first, the students dont see themselves as Doctors but through the blogging process they become more reflective and get used to using the vernacular. From the article:
“When students from ethnic minority communities and disadvantaged economic backgrounds dream of becoming doctors, they sometimes struggle to envision themselves within that world. The contrasts between hometown, university, medical school, and hospital rounds can be overwhelming.”
“Weekly blogging is an integral part of my students’ pre-medicine internship. Through this creative, reflective process, they gradually see themselves as doctors and nurses, redefining their identities.”
Source: Arizona Daily Star
Its an interesting approach and yet another example of new technologies being used in learning and medical education. Have you got help from blogging your personal learning experiences? We’d love to hear from you.
January 25th, 2010
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
The reality is simple. Poor handovers create discontinuities in care that can lead to adverse events and subsequent litigation. Poor handovers are associated with delayed diagnosis, medication errors, inaccurate diagnosis and increased length of stay.
A New Zealand study of clinical handovers in a tertiary hospital found that the majority of house officers encountered a clinical problem due to poor handover between 7 and 14 times in their previous three-month rotation. This was put down to inadequate systems, poor leadership and lack of specific handover locations.
It can be argued that good handovers have never been so important.
Last year the European Working Time Directive came into force, limiting the number of hours a doctor can work. It has posed major challenges to the way care is delivered. Many royal colleges have been outspoken about how the EWTD has disrupted the continuity of care patients are receiving, as more and more patients are handed over.
In the Casebook article “Dropping the baton” Sara Williams draws on the research that has been done by patient safety leads and practising clinicians to examine how a patient can be handed over effectively, highlighting the salient points that doctors need to bear in mind when handing over a patient.
January 6th, 2010
It could only happen in America. This story from the Miami Herald tells of how a doctor has used twitter to send families regular updates during a plastic surgery operation:
In the waiting room, the patient’s family members circled a Blackberry. About every 15 minutes, Dr. Carlos Wolf of Miami Plastic Surgery gave them a few keystrokes of information about how the patient was doing.
“M is asleep,” one of Wolf’s nurses typed at 9:13 a.m. on June 3. “We will start surgery soon.”
Less than an hour later, the nose job was complete.
“Beautiful,” the nurse typed. “She’s going to love it.”
From the Miami Herald
Although this may seem absurd, the use of social networking tools is now commonplace in personal circles and businesses are starting to take note. Over the last 6 months we have seen an explosion in professional networking and knowledge share sites, meaning it is quicker and easier to get in touch and share information.
The example in the article later goes on to describe how surgeons used Twitter to report the account of an operation to remove a kidney tumour, and how anyone with web access could tune in to a webcast to watch a knee ligament being repaired live.
These are all great advances and examples of people using the technology well to further professional learning. Here at Medical Educator it’s what we are good at, our niche is medical students.
Has anyone else got any good examples of how web 2.0 has helped their professional lives? We’d love to hear your comments.
step-by-step medical procedures
November 9th, 2009
Medical Educator is pleased to be sponsored by the Medical Protection Society (MPS), to improve the media content on our website, and help support developments to assist medical students in their revision.
A valuable source of information for doctors and students
MPS is not just a sponsor for Medical Educator, but a valuable source of ethical and practical information for doctors. They publish a series of educational publications including Casebook, New Doctor magazine and GP Registrar.
MPS is a mutual membership organisation which provides comprehensive professional advice to doctors, dentists and other health professionals in more than 40 countries around the world. As a not-for-profit organisation, MPS supports its members with medicolegal advice and education relevant to their professional practice.
Joining is free for all medical students
Remember joining the Medical Protection Society is free for all medical students. Why not check out their pages here to see what they can offer you.
One of the contributors to the site describes his experiences of being a member of MPS:
“I’ve been a member with the MPS since I was a medical student, and now I am 7 years post qualification, and on the speciality register. The MPS were helpful not only in my postgraduate studies, but were able to give me advice on my elective project and what needed to be done in this instance. As I was conducting this abroad, it was a very useful service. MPS has also been a useful port of call when faced with challenging ethical and medicolegal problems that are unavoidable to practicing physicians”.
Professional support and advice
One of the founders of Medical Educator has this to say about the MPS:
“I really have valued the support of MPS in my professional career to date, and I am pleased that they are helping to develop the Medical Educator site. Medical Indemnity support is critical to both practising doctors and medical undergraduates. Professional support and expert advice is simply a phone call away. Casebook is helpful. As a doctor practising internal medicine it has some useful pointers on common medico-legal pitfalls. For example in the September 09 issue, two Orthopaedic surgeons cover the subject of Cauda Eauina syndrome.”
The article is available in full through the website but lets look at an excerpt focussing on the diagnosis of CES:
Excerpt from Casebook: Cauda equina syndrome
CES is usually characterised by the following so-called “red flag” symptoms:
- Severe low back pain (LBP)
- Sciatica – often bilateral but sometimes absent – especially at L5/S1 with an inferior sequestration
- Saddle and genital sensory deficit
- Bladder, bowel and sexual dysfunction.
Three types of cauda equina syndrome have been identified:
- Rapid onset without a previous history of back problems.
- Acute bladder dysfunction with a history of low back pain and sciatica.
- Chronic backache and sciatica with gradually progressing CES.
Within these groups, CES may be complete or incomplete and its onset may be either acute within hours or gradual over weeks or months.
Providing you with content
We hope to provide some bespoke content on some medico-legal cases from the experts at the MPS as well as updating our own members in the monthly newsletter that’s sent out with some more relevant content. Expect to find updates and other relevant info from them. If you’re not already a member we would recommend choosing MPS to provide your professional indemnity.
February 8th, 2009
In the UK in the past few years there has been a bit of upheaval in the old junior doctor jobs market.
Remedy UK, A British organisation representing doctors.This problem has been mirrored to some extent in the US.
A UK pressure group, set up and run by doctors called Remedy UK has been representing doctors in the UK for the last few years. Many will remember the junior doctors Marchig through London on the 17th of March 2007. A medical educator writer was present on the march and recalled the following:
For the first time in a long time an organisation captured the mood of a whole group of junior doctors. After the initial progress, they have a difficult struggle against what are very powerful organisations.
Some may question the part that Remedy play representing the junior doctors in Britain. Medical Educator is inviting a member of the organisation to speak about why what they stand for is relevant to medical student in the UK and internationally. We hope to publish their views soon.
Doctors Marching on the 17th March 2007 through London.
Remedy are now attempting to mount a landmark legal challenge to the whole application process. We hope to bring you a report on this ’straight from the horses mouth’.
January 9th, 2009
It goes all the way back to 1986? Sometimes its best to look back not forwards, and we can see from research in the BMJ dating back to 1986 that medical students were having a tough time back then.
Lets go back to the results from 1986 from the paper “Levels and sources of stress in medical students”, published by Jenny Firth.
The domains assessed included:
- Clinical tasks with patients
- Talking with patients
- Dealing with death or suffering
- Relationship with consultants Relationship with other doctors
- Academic work
- Effect on private life (relationships, finances, etc)
- Feeling that medical profession has failed
- (embarrassing or distressing patients, possibility of
- incompetence, etc.)
- Presenting cases, performing on ward rounds
- Concerns over electives
33% of men and 4% of women did not report any stressful experiences. I wonder where they are now…What’s perhaps even more interesting is that ‘talking with patients’ was the most stressful event for the students. Why not have a look at our poll to see what the current medical students were thinking?
Amongst the results are some interesting findings including:
- 17% of medical students agreeing to drinking a lot occasionally
- 4% of medical students drinking a lot often
Its likely that the domains, if they were being written again today would have a slightly different feel to them. A quick search on Google now brings up the American Medical Students Association (AMSA) for some helpful advice on dealing with stress. Unfortunately with the increasing pressures of the global credit crunch, there are certainly fears that it could only get worse.
November 21st, 2008
PMETB has commented on the state of postgraduate education at the RCP (Royal College of Physicians) conference on the 17th November 2008. The actions taken by MMC and the PMETB will have a direct effect on applicants to postgraduate training in the UK.
On their website PMETB refer to the new document as follows…
“Chapters focus on key policy and regulatory developments, topical issues such as leadership, training delivery, assessments and the standards and quality of training in the UK.”
Its been a difficult time for the gatekeepers of postgraduate education in England, with PMETB acknowledging the problems with MMC. Their publication is hefty, all 93 pages of it.
Medical Educator is hoping to get an interview a representative from PMETB with a view to the issues the prior problems have raised with medical students entering what PMETB has itself termed a “changing landscape”.
There’s a link to the PDF document here. PMETB’s website can be found here.
October 22nd, 2008
When applying for places at medical schools follow our 10 golden rules…
1.) Read an article form nature related to health prior to going to your interview.
2.)Have an aspect of your study/ SSM that you can specifically talk about in terms of interests
3.) Have a location specific reason why you want to that specific job
4.) Be able to list your strengths
5.) Have an answer to “what are your weaknesses”.
6.) Demonstrate areas outside of medicine where you can relax.
7.) Approach the topic of future speciality with sensible pro’s and cons about why you would like to work in that specific area
8.) Read about clinical governance (the 7 rules: google it or Clinical Governance).
9.) Read about the restructuring of medical careers (MMC, modernising medical careers/ MTAS) — google it or search http://www.nhsemployers.org/
10.) Thank the interviewers at the end for their time.
Preparation is key but some focus on areas to prepare for will really help!
See our PDF on applying for FY1 jobs, written by an F1 who successfully navigated through the process on the main site.
October 15th, 2008
Its clear that training schemes throughout the UK are oversubscribed with trainees where there are potentially not enough jobs.As the competition increases the need for ways to discriminate between the candidates becomes ever more important
The FY1 entry scheme is fixated on a scoring system in an attempt to homogenise all medical school graduates. But is this fair?
But what of a standard exam nationwide set for medical students? Is it on its way? You can be sure of a few things..
- There is a lot of money to be made from setting the questions…
- The potential for fraud increased exponentially as the stakes are raised
- Who will do what with the results. The worst performing medical school?
- The possibility of a medical school being in a position where a large proportion of students fail
Surely though its the only way to make the MTAS application process objective, and we here at medicaleducator broadly endorse a nationwide exam for medical students.
It seems like its still many miles away yet…