Medical stereotypes are a well known, ranging from the hippy-esque GP, to the man-mountain of an orthopaedic surgeon, via the suave and sophisticated plastic surgeon. I’m not entirely sure what the stereotype of a chest physician is, but I would be grateful if you could let me know… These stereotypes, and perceptions of who goes […]
Tag: Medical students
The beauty of the written word?
Of the essential skills for doctors, writing has to be up there as one of the most important. Doctors writing has been the butt of many jokes ove the years – justifiably, and written prescriptions remain a significant source of error in hospitals up and down the land. The medical notes are another area where […]
The great game…
The PMJ editors met recently, and it was a pleasure to meet up with a range of engaged, eloquent, educated and motivated individuals who all share a passion for Postgraduate Medical Education. It was therefore a little bit of a surprise when a reference to an article on the gamification of medical education proved to […]
Are you safely socialised?
Changes in role within the medical profession are times of great upheaval. One of the most challenging is the change from being a medical student to a fully qualified doctor. A cohort of medical students qualifies every year around June/July time, and members of this cohort take their first steps on the wards and in […]
50% of what you are taught is wrong…
There is a phrase in medical education which often gets aired at the welcoming lecture to medical school: “50% of what we teach you over the next five years will be wrong, or inaccurate. Sadly, we don’t know which 50%” Quite why those welcoming students to a rigorous, physically and mentally demanding degree course would […]
Is there any such thing as “IRL” ?
Social media is all pervasive – it is nigh on impossible to see an advertisement nowadays without a hastag, facebook, pinterest or twitter handle attached. Social media has been credited with sparking revolutions, riots and bringing down criminals, and is even used by the Pope to spread his message to the world. Perhaps it isn’t […]
Proper preparation and planning… part 2
I have blogged previously about the readiness of medical students to take on the role of a doctor when they exit medical school. The previous paper I looked at highlighted that a significant proportion of medical students felt unprepared for the jobs they were ostensibly trained for, and that this proportion was variable across the […]
Is that a smartphone in your pocket?
Smartphones are almost ubiquitous on the wards nowadays. In a departmental meeting the other day a question popped up about the commonest reason for admission to hospital acute medical services. Out came my smartphone, and after a search, and a tweet – almost instantly (and quickly enough to furnish an answer by the end of […]
Proper preparation and planning…
There is a basic assumption that medical schools prepare medical students to become doctors. One might expect that medical schools prepare medical students to broadly similar standards, and that by extension, their students would be broadly prepared for practice when they emerge blinking onto the wards each August. In a fascinating paper, Goldacre, Lambert and […]