Waikatoloco4thyear

Things that separate Waikato Loco from the rest:

- Locomotor at the Mighty Waikato is very self-motivated, nobody will ask you or expect you to do anything most of the time, so you have to actively seek out opportunities to learn, I think they did that deliberately because they don't like to spend time with students that are not keen for orthopaedics. Due to the self-motivated nature of this run, it might not be ideal if this is your first run of the year, it takes a while to develop the required skin-thickness to ask consultants and registrars if you could hang out with them. If your first run is Loco, I would suggest Middlemore where it's a bit more Uni-like in terms of organisation.

- You're not attached to a team, there is only a vague schedule of what's on during when - meaning you are free to do what ever you want during the day. For some people this is good for leaving the hospital early or even leaving hamilton for a few days…For me this meant I could pick what ever operation I wanted to see, turn up and then scrub-in for the operation. The orthopods have all been very excellent during the operation and really gets the students involved.

- You are free to attend fracture clinics whenever you want, chance to get one-on-one time with a consultant who will teach you heaps.

- ROOOOAD trips! The clinical school will give you a car, complete with petrol vouchers and give you vague instructions on how to get to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Rotorua. Once there you will actually get to see rheumatology patients and get your rheumatology CAT topic sorted right there - from what I heard, you don't get to see any rheumatology patients at any of the other hospitals. More Road trip, Mr. Strick will drive you to Thames Hospital and get you to help him out at the outpatient clinics there by seeing the patients before he does.

- No morning ward rounds, well they do exist but I've never been asked to go to those :)

- No official OSCE teaching - you must get that from the consultants or registrars by skillfully steering the conversation that way during clinics, once prompted, they will go out of their way to give you very very good teaching. To get more OSCE teaching you have to chase registrars around after hours.

- Tutorials were not very well organised, you get a nifty timetable that tells you when the tutorials are, but most of the time, the consultant taking the tutorial would be unaware of such a tutorial and will often be unavailable. Chase them down and call them on their cell phones the day before to confirm. It is annoying for them and for you but that's just the way it is.

- Oh and a thing to add about the rheumatology CAT, you'll have to present it (as opposed to just handing in the spreadsheet like in other hospitals) so takes longer to prepare but the good thing is you tend to get a higher mark as a result since it's easier to score marks on the presentation (you get points for keeping to time, having effective visuals etc).

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