I get what you're saying, and there definately are benefits to be had from both approaches. I think at Otago, even though there may not be as much new examinable material introduced at 2nd year (something that I can believe given that I can already answer quite a few questions in the 2008 2nd year final exam), there is nothing stopping us from learning a bit more if we want. In a way I'm looking forward to having some freedom to decide how well I want to know a certain topic. Along these lines (and others), an impression I'm starting to get is that Otago medicine is likely to be a lot more similar to NCEA than first year was - something I definately welcome.
One of the objectives of the Otago ELM is that by the end of 3rd year, students will be actively identifying questions they want answered and finding the required knowledge. I don't know to what extent this will actually occur, but I reckon this shows that it may not be fair to directly compare the two medical schools based on what is explicitly said in lectures and tested in exams.
Also bear in mind the dangers of covering too much material - lecturers need to ask themselves how much their students can absorb in a lecture (rather than how much the lecturer can cover), and what is actually relevant (apparently when my parents went though Otago med school, the citric acid cycle was the bane of many students lives. Countless times they were made to memorise it, all the while aware that it was not something they needed to have memorised as doctors). Often the most effective lecturers are the ones who cover very little material per lecture.
I can see the idea behind Otago's approach. As med students we should be responsible and mature enough to make our own decisions concerning our learning. If we feel there are gaps in our knowledge, or topics that interest us, as greenglacier said there is nothing stopping us from learning more. The lack of harsh exams, difficult marking or high failure rates sends a message that the course is not about forcing huge amounts of information down students' throats.
My concern is that this freedom seems to be 'abused' by a lot of students. It's very easy for students to say "why bother" or "who cares, I'll pass anyway". We'd all like to think that students would be motivated to further their knowledge and equip themselves well for the clinical years and beyond, but when it's so easy to pass, it becomes very tempting to slack off. From what I've seen, most students will not go beyond what is presented to them in the course, and many students were scrambling before the final exams because they had not done much work throughout the year. Dunedin's party-friendly environment does not help.
Concerning Auckland (and this is just from my own opinion), forcing so much information onto the students and setting difficult exams might cause them to start strongly resenting the course, increase stress levels, and just be a burden than no student should have to deal with. I think Otago is trying to challenge the idea that medicine needs to be a hellish course, where the sanity of the students is challenged time and time again. I also don't see the need for learning detail that will never be handy to know, and will be forgotten after the exams anyway.
I really hope we aren't disadvantaged when it comes to PGY1 or anything. Although I'm sure the people that run the course know what they're doing.
Anyone filled out the registration forms for OUMSA and that yet?
In the end, you'll have to do the learning yourself. I don't think you'll be disadvantaged in any way because you have all the resources available to you. The most important factor in how you'll turn out at graduation is yourself, not the course. You are in control of your own learning.
These are the guys who felt that we shouldn't be given lecture slides before lectures because it would somehow make us lazy or something. Hypocritical seeing as they want students to be more independent and in control of their own learning. Our education reps had to really fight for that piece of policy to change.