Middlemoregenmed4thyear

What days tutorials are on: almost everyday, the tutorials are excellent in quality, especially the bedside teaching. Highly organised tutorials with consultants actually answering their phones if they forget to turn up. MMH prides itself in being a teaching hospital and the consultants reflect that. The frequent tutorials also mean that the time-honoured excuse "I've got teaching" to escape from ward rounds will never be suspected but expect them to actually take an interest and ask you what teaching you had and who taught you…so do it at your own peril.

How hard you have to work: fairly hard, Gen Med was the most time-consuming run I've had all year. There are quite a few assignements to do:
5 case histories + a Maori case (thankfully you're in MMH and not the Shore) - expected standard is very high so hand one in on your first week so you can correct it to the expected standard.
Clerking (10 patients) - get onto that early and don't leave it till the end, it should be easy to get that done by week 4 if you try just a little bit harder.
Case Presentation: where everyone in the group will get to present their case histories.
Core Topic: each person is assigned a core topic either by themselves or with a partner. It involves finding a patient (use that for case history because you'll have a sweet discussion) with the relevant condition and then present it to the rest of the group in the form of a seminar, complete with powerpoints and handouts, with the specialist consultant in attendance. Just a word of advice, if you get the cardio topic, make sure you really do alot of work and know your stuff…
OSCE: you get 2 patients each, real patients on the ward. 4 possible exams - cardio, resp, neuro and abdo (I've been told abdo is the least likely, but we had the most bedside teaching in abdo…go figure). Practice on each other but then what you also need to do is get your HO or reg to watch you do a a full exam (be quick tho) on one of the systems just to get that bit slicker and they'll probably teach you better techniques and more osce advice. On the osce week, if you have time, detach yourself from you team and say you have osce practice and go and do exactly just that with your classmates and also, as a team of 2~3 go around the entire hospital and ask around to hear murmurs and chest sounds and other clinical signs. Chances are you will see those patients for the osce and will not be as scary. OSCE example "This patient presents with swelling of the legs and shortness of breath, please carry out a cardiovascular exam" - hopefully a lightbulb that says "heart failure" would've switched on so go and search for the associated signs, the patient also may or may not have a murmur.
Grand Rounds: sit in every friday around 12.30ish for a 1 hour+ lecture extravaganza. You have to attend all 6 of these and get them signed off. Even though your team probably wouldn't show and will just take your word for it and sign you off, still turn up because no doubt everybody else in your group will and you will look bad if you don't. NO FREE LUNCH but they have kindly offered to let you bring your own.

What time to turn up on the first day - and where!: You'll get an email about it so it shoudn't be confusing, you report to the MMH clinical centre at ?8.30.

Time of handover Handover is every morning at 8am in the ALT except for mondays which is in the staff centre on the second floor.

Where you can leave your stuff: there are student lockers but what I did was just leave it on my home ward, that's what the reg and HO does and we've never had problems, touch wood.

Where the good coffee is to be found: free to use the coffee and tea machine in the staff (aviary) cafe, that coffee is putrid, so go to the Pulse cafe or the one near the train entrance for acceptable coffee.

How you'll be marked: case history + osce + consultant report - go to ward rounds and ask intelligent questions to score points. Bring CAKE, everybody brings cake so that has become something people expect in MMH, so make sure you dont miss out in the bake-goods marks.

Where to park: take the train if you can. If you must drive then there are 5 dollar/wk staff parking available or you could park on the road if you don't value your possessions.

Quality of cafe food: pretty good I must admit, wide selection and not too expensive. - No way, the food at aviary cafe is terrible (but edible). Good range, but expensive and limited opening hours. They definitely need more competition.

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