Otago HSFY chat - archive

[SASOL]

Sorry to hear about that docca.emb. Don't give up though, only 2 more years (they will fly by). Good luck if you are on the waiting list

 

[greenglacier]

Hey skyglow (or any Otago ELM student who can answer), what's the situation with NZQA scholarship awards and the B average when med doesn't award grades?

 

[skyglow1]

Good question. I've had mixed responses throughout the year from staff about this. At the start of this year I emailed Helen Nicholson asking how it's going to work out. This is the response I got:

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your e-mail and yes, as you mention there are quite a few students in a similar position to you. The University has contacted Studylink and explained that while medicine does not provide grades that entry into medicine requires students to have performed at an "A" level. Furthermore, that in order for a student to pass year 2 and 3 medicine they would have to have performed at greater than a B grade. So you should not have to do anything more than let Studylink know that you have passed the year. If you do have any problems or concerns about this please contact Jillian Tourelle in the Student Affairs Office (just behind the Colqhuon Lecture theatre) as she's the expert!

Thanks

Helen

At the end of the year, just before our final exams, they had a Q&A session regarding the exams. This question was brought up again, and the response this time was from Jillian Tourelle who said we should come in next year (i.e. 2010) to sort out our grades for studylink instead.

I don't even know if we get a paper copy of our results (all it has is "pass" on it on the website). I'm going to wait for a paper copy, and if that doesn't come then print out the internet version and get it stamped or something by Jillian, then see if Studylink will accept that. If they don't then I'll have to talk to go in to see Jilian, but I suspect she would've had a lot of enquiries about this already and knows what to do. I'll probably go in to see her anyway because I'd like a bit more feedback than just "pass".

 

[greenglacier]

Cool. That sounds about what I expected the situation to be, but thanks for confirming that I don't have a load of wrangling with the med school ahead. Hopefully studylink won't be (too) difficult to deal with when the time comes either...

In terms of feedback on the final exams, don't they release the mark out of 5 for the SAQ exam and OSCE and the percentage for the MCQ exam and OSPE? This document https://micn.otago.ac.nz/wp-content/uploads/micn/2009/03/elm_news_01_20092.pdf clearly shows that such data is available, but meh, I suppose it's not that important to know your exact mark as long as you passed...

 

[skyglow1]

I've never seen that document before. That sort of information would be nice, just to see how I performed in each exam overall. They haven't provided anything more than the 'pass' yet. Maybe they will later.

 

[g.walker]

So you guys have to do your first aid courses now ay?

[offtopic]congrats on reaching 100 pages [/offtopic]

 

[SASOL]

Nah we had to have our first aid certificate to able to apply for med, so we have ours already^_^

 

[SASOL]

Someone should start a FBook group for 2014 med

 

[skyglow1]

About textbooks...the ones I would get before lectures start are the Gray's Anatomy and the pathology textbook. All the others are definitely only optional.

 

[greenglacier]

About textbooks...the ones I would get before lectures start are the Gray's Anatomy and the pathology textbook. All the others are definitely only optional.

Thanks for the advice. Would you say there is any benefit at this level of getting "pathological basis of disease" as opposed to "basic pathology"? Also, do most 2nd years really spend $1400? All the "essential" textbooks + stethoscope only add up to $850 max.

Is there something we haven't been told?

 

[skyglow1]

No way. I probably have more books than most and I'm sure mine is under 1000 in total. Make sure you shop around for every book!

I have the pathological basis of disease. It is more detailed and its a huge book to lug around (so it sat on the floor in my room most of the time). I guess if you wanted a book that you knew would really last you for a number of years you'd get the bigger one, but the smaller book is perfectly adequate and the references they give you are for the smaller book.

 

[Deleted member 4350]

Hey guys, was just wondering what options I have if (God forbid) I don't make it the 2nd time round. Say I get into Pharmacy, can I apply for med through the Alternative Category WHILE I'm studying Pharm? Any advice will be great. Greenglacier, I know you're very knowledgeable at this subject

 

[greenglacier]

Hey guys, was just wondering what options I have if (God forbid) I don't make it the 2nd time round. Say I get into Pharmacy, can I apply for med through the Alternative Category WHILE I'm studying Pharm? Any advice will be great. Greenglacier, I know you're very knowledgeable at this subject

Well I'm pretty sure you can apply for Auckland graduate entry twice (since you didn't do OLY1). There are also quite a few of the Australian med schools where you would be able to apply - e.g. Melbourne is completely graduate entry (though there's a funny business there about approved papers - SASOL and I had a thread going about it over in "graduate entry" before offers came out). My understanding is that as the Australian and New Zealand medical schools all fall under the same regulatory body you'd get a pretty similar education to Otago medicine at any of them. Also, because the admissions system work differently (e.g. I think the Australian schools view an A- as the same as an A+), you may have a better chance of admission than you would at Otago.

If you are absolutely set on Otago though, it looks like (according to the health sciences website) you'd have to study at least three years of (eg.) pharmacy before you could qualify for the other category (and as pharmacy is another 3 years, then you'd graduate before you could apply!) - though you'd probably want to do more than just that given that the other category is quite possibly the most competitive of the three. With this in mind, my interpretation is that the earliest you could enter Otago medicine from the other category would be 2nd year in 2016, graduating in 2020...



Thanks skyglow. The picture I have gotten is that pathological basis of disease is the book I'd ultimately want, so I'll have a look at it as well as basic pathology after lectures start to decide if I want to "go via basic pathology". I definately plan to look around all the books and suppliers before buying (though those could be famous last words given that I do get a bit of a thrill out of buying textbooks...)



EDIT: [offtopic]Yay, the thread has reached 1000 replies![/offtopic]

 

[Deleted member 4350]

Thanks for the response. Do you mean apply for Auckland grad-entry twice in the same year? Also, where did you discover the whole 'A- is the same as an A+' conversion? I think if I don't make it 2nd time round I'll probably be forced to transfer to Aus. Only thing left to do is work hard and wait long.

 

[greenglacier]

Thanks for the response. Do you mean apply for Auckland grad-entry twice in the same year? Also, where did you discover the whole 'A- is the same as an A+' conversion? I think if I don't make it 2nd time round I'll probably be forced to transfer to Aus. Only thing left to do is work hard and wait long.

Re. Auckland - the Auckland website appears to indicate that official policy is that a person may apply only twice across the two categories (as opposed to the Otago policy of once in each category), hence if you applied for graduate entry as your first attempt to get into Auckland med and were unsuccessful, you could try again the next year (with a new UMAT and interview). At least I think that's the case.

Re. grades - for graduate entry to Australian med schools I'm pretty sure ACER administer this and calculate your gpa on a 7 point scale. This website https://gamsat.acer.edu.au/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103&Itemid=289 has information on how the calculation is done.

 

[SASOL]

Just a little note about Melbourne Unis grad med. Its 4 years and I emailed asking about the approved papers, they said that if you give them details of lectures you are studying for a certain paper, then they can assess it and approve it. However, NZers in aussie have to pay some of the fees without a loan ($8000 ish I think). That goes for all aus med schools

 

[SASOL]

Also greenglacier is right about A- here being equivalent to an aussie A+
Im going to start a 2014 med thread to talk about med related stuff there and keep this one to HSFY/getting into med related stuff. Anyone disagree? If you do delete my new thread if you want

 

[greenglacier]

Im going to start a 2014 med thread to talk about med related stuff there and keep this one to HSFY/getting into med related stuff. Anyone disagree? If you do delete my knew thread if you want

Agree in that we need to get out of this thread. I was thinking we could move to the "2nd year med" thread but if you want to start a "2014" one that's fine by me.

 

[g.walker]

Say guys, what papers are you doing this year? At auckland, we're doing musculoskeletal, digestive, principles of medicine and professional development in semester1, moving on to cardiorespiratory and genitourinary in s2 along with the other 2 from s1.

 

[skyglow1]

Just use the 2nd year med one for discussion...it's pretty dead anyway lol.

At Otago you simply do 1 paper: MICN201. The block modules they do are Behavioural medicine, Musculoskeletal, Cardiovascular, Respiratory, Gastrointestinal in that order.