I'm a 3rd-year at University of Queensland. Here are pros/cons of the program:

mercredi 11 novembre 2015

I'm a third-year at UQ and am one of the three Americans (40 total) in my cohort who's not in Ochsner (i.e. I'm doing the full degree in Australia).

Cons:

The teaching here during the first two years is not satisfactory. That's just my opinion. There are plenty who are content with the program, but I also think most people are just oblivious or myopic as it is.

I expected a lot more hands-on anatomy/histology assessment during my first-year, and the program severely lacks that. The written assessment is also very minimal (equivalent to my undergrad university's physiology exams) such that many who pass still don't know that much.

The program also literally does not teach microbiology, pharmacology or biochemistry beyond a mere ostensible and/or cursory level.

Every student who comes here goes through a "realization" phase during mid-semester first-year where he or she becomes aware of the lack of guidance in the program.

A subtle cultural difference between America and Australia that has taken me some time to realize: Australians, in general, take greater umbrage to challenges/debates within the classroom. My classmates never pushed me to learn or grow. They would just seem to get offended if I questioned them to elaborate on what they knew. They were mostly very passive and decorous (like furniture), but not challenging whatsoever- very banal. This really bothered me because I wanted my classmates to push me to a level that probably could not be achieved by independent studying alone. At many times, I had felt I was at the wrong school and conveyed this by not displaying the greatest patience with some of my colleagues; this repetitive process during second-year was exasperating.

PBL/CBL (problem-/peer-based learning / case-based learning) during second-year, at times, can be very insipid and dragging. It adheres to a very fixed, focus-question-based learning style that doesn't really help anyone substance-wise. Since you're with the same group of nine other students all year (and meeting with them twice per week), although important personal-professional relationships can be developed, if you get a bad group, you're screwed, and PBL seriously can be the biggest waste of time, especially when you have other things to learn/do outside of class (i.e. the USMLE!).

Pros:

UQ offers a 6-year MD-PhD program. It entails two full-time PhD years intercalated between MS2 and -3. There is also part-time PhD work during MS3 (and 4 if necessary). In contrast (and as far as I'm aware), the overwhelming majority of programs out there are 7-9 years in length. Needless to say, I'm glad I have the option to get it done in 6, rather than to have it drag on for 8 or 9 years. Finding an advisor is super-easy, and there are quite a few UQ-affiliated research institutions to scope out.

Ironically, the weak program actually becomes advantageous when you begin prep for the USMLE. I was glad that I didn't have to deal with [too many] onerous requirements during my second-year because I was able to accelerate my external USMLE focus. This has carried into my third-year, and I will be sitting the exam in December. Since UQ doesn't teach micro, pharm or biochem, I've relied heavily on FA, QBanks and other external resources to improve these areas, blind as to the nature of the extent of my learning because I was never assessed by my school on these topics. Shockingly, micro, biochem and pharm have become among my strongest subjects so far, and I attribute that to "over-compensation" with respect to my school's deficits; no other conclusion could be a possibility.

There is also record of some of the world's highest USMLE scores having come from this school (once again, strongly due to external "over-compensation"). And when I say high, I mean really ridiculously, unnecessarily high.

There is a physiology professor during first-year, Terry Tunny, who is phenomenal. If only the entire staff/administration paralleled his excellence..

Clinical coaching during second-year is in the hospital wards and hands-on (mostly what you make of it).

I had the opportunity to do a two-month colonoscopy training course (on a $70,000 piece of vinyl). This actually helped me learn quite a bit, and I also got paid to do it.

There is an OSCE-exam at the end of second-year that mimics Step-2CS of the USMLE in some ways. This at least ensures a degree of practical competency before progressing to third-year.

The one-month elective at the end of first-year, where you work full-time in a hospital/clinic anywhere in the world, in any field or specialty, is A+++ (of course some people don't have the best time on theirs, but that's the exception rather than the rule). People tend to go international. I know many who went to Africa, the islands or wherever. I chose to stay local (for financial reasons) and worked in the obstetrics OT in Brisbane. I would literally scrub-in to assist with hysterectomies and Cesarean sections. I even helped with a natural birth. Compared to some of my friends who go to school in the States, they were blown away that I had had this experience this early on.

You can take advantage of being a med student and contact local surgeons/specialists to get "in" with them at your leisure. As I mentioned above, I did my one-month elective full-time in obstetrics, but I had actually been working with the same surgeon once per week for half of the year prior, just because I took the initiative to make contacts. Some of the other students in my program were amazed that I would leave class early to go help with a C-section, but meanwhile, if they had merely gone out of their way to contact whomever, they could have been in the same position. The same goes for the wards. You don't have to be shy and just show up when clinical coaching happens once per week. You can walk in whenever and see patients / do exams. Perhaps the flexibility is just as strong at other med schools, but I'm simply citing that as an absolute fact of this school regardless.

David Wilkinson, the dean, is extremely amiable and personable. I've met with him a few times, and it's been very evident to me each time exactly how and why he's dean.

Pathology is taught well during second-year, despite the lack of adequate assessment. I've read on other forums/websites, etc., that there are two types of med schools: those that teach path well and those that teach pharm well. UQ is definitely the former. I didn't come out of second-year feeling as though I was well-rounded. I came out feeling like I was supposed to be a pathologist or something (that's also probably because I had read Robbin's and BRS Pathology and had done an obscene number of path questions from various resources).

Brisbane is an awesome location. The backpacker-feeling north and south of here is phenomenal. The idea of being in Australia is exactly as it sounds. It's exotic. It's fun. It's the time of your life when you're in your 20s. I will forever be glad that I made my life more exciting by having come here.

At the end of the day, regardless of the pros/cons of the UQ program, you're only as good of a doctor as you choose to be. No program nor anyone around you, in the long-term, will or can dictate that. The drive to learn comes from within you, and that will get you anywhere in this world.

If you apply to UQ (or UQ-Ochsner), good luck. I hope my pithy statements here have been of at least minimal assistance.

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Update (3+ years later):

I'm now in my 6th and final year of the UQ program. Teaching on / quality of the clinical rotations in the latter two years is variable and highly dependent on getting lucky with whom you're assigned to / which teams you work with. Therefore the subjective component cannot be quantified and can differ entirely based on factors out of one's control.

Objectively however, I'm going to be as honest and candid as I can possibly be when I say that the quality of the slides / learning material issued by the school for the rotations is overall poor and outdated. I really don't want to be negative, since sometimes the most mature viewpoint is to not voice one at all if it's not positive, but I believe it's important people know that. The quality of the written assessment for the rotations is also very poor and often completely unrelated or meandering. This isn't just my own view; this is what everyone in the program talks about.

Now that I've finished the USMLE process (excepting Step 3 which is taken after med school), I could easily rewrite the slides and exams for every rotation in the program, as a complete overhaul, and the program would go from a D to an A. As I just mentioned above, I do not believe the subjective component as far as quality of mentors/teams is necessarily school-dependent, which is why I collectively use the course material and quality of assessment in my analysis of how strong the UQ program is.

What I can communicate is that if you show an enthusiasm to learn, be an active team player, and never put yourself first, people will be more likely to reciprocate and teach with enthusiasm.

And in terms of any update on preclinical years (which I finished long ago), I've heard through the grapevine that various first-year students were confused about the lack of guidance and didn't feel challenged; so perhaps not much has changed from that end.

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I'm a 3rd-year at University of Queensland. Here are pros/cons of the program:

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