sem 4 student here
just wondering where is better to twin to (since we have to make our decisions next semester, best be thinking about it while i have so much free time in sem 4 )
1) uk- i know you can work for 2 years there (foundation year 1 and 2). not sure where you can go after that though. any chance they might make it easier for internationals to become a registrar and subsequently get into a fellowship (specialization?)?

2) aus- heard that they might change their working policies too since australia is getting saturated with internationals. but seems to be the only country where i could specialize there. the darn 6 months waiting period is putting me off though.

i know. but i really can't make up my mind. maybe flipping a coin will do. ahahaha
adelaide seems to be the best option but there's a lot of competition for it.

nah. my parents don't favour the Bmedsci route. they think its better to spend a year doing clinical medicine then a year of research.
university of syd route is crazy. i wonder who will go through all that effort to go in.

any seniors here at PMS? can share your experience?

hahahahaha. another reason not to choose an aus uni.

darn

i think pretty dangerous to apply to USA. unless you're really confident in passing the USMLE. cause i know that if you say you're taking USMLE, you won't be matched at all.

well.. i think i will still apply to either uk or aus and cross my fingers praying for things to get better for us foreign students

is the knowledge gap really wide compared to students studying in pms?

as far as i've heard, imu students seem to be doing pretty ok at pms with only a few flunking their exams there.

i honestly have no idea. but i guess it won't be as easy as getting into imu definitely.

but i think even if you are a citizen in any country, there are ways of becoming a doctor if you're rejected by the local unis. so many affordable and more lenient unis (in terms of admission requirements) are available overseas. like australian pr students coming to imu to study. so i don't think buying a place in med school is a problem afflicting developing countries alone.

This post has been edited by monkeygirl: Sep 11 2009, 02:04 AM

as you said, they still will be able to go back to their home countries by passing the amc exams.
so i guess, if anybody has the will, they can become a doctor, regardless of their academic achievement. they just have to work hard for it.

but it's true that our gov's education policy is pretty screwed up. i know of students who slave through stpm, obtained straight As and were not offered a place in any of the local unis. hence, imu provides an alternative for these students.

probably not "regardless of academic achievement". I agree they do have to have a baseline academic mark. But I've often wondered how minimum are the requirements to enter the most lenient of medical schools?
Personally, I do feel that private medical schools should be more stringent when accepting students.

heard that compared with PMS students, we also fail quite terribly when it comes to communication skills.

fun fun>> was the BmedSci course tough? and do you think it was beneficial to your medical studies?

thanks for the reply fun fun
at least i know a bit more about bmedsci if i consider going to one of the graduate unis.

if melbourne still affiliated with IMU? cause the last i checked, melb wasn't listed as one of the PMS choices for the m207 batch.

wow. i didn't know melb was now 4 years.
but it really wasn't listed as an option for the m207 batch. i guess maybe they are closing their doors to imu students wishing to twin there till 2010 comes then they will start their graduate entry.

apparently, the last undergraduate batch for Melb U was taken in 2008.
2009's intake is the postgrad batch doing 4.5 years there.
no intake is planned for 2010 but they will resume taking in applications for 2011 which is a postgrad entry and the course duration is 4 years.

does this mean that future students opting for this have to basically become a sem1 student again when transferred to melbourne U (since the course duration is now shortened to 4 years)?
that's dumb.

and this new system actually applies to which batch (m207, m108, m208?)?

This post has been edited by monkeygirl: Oct 25 2009, 12:01 PM

not from the faculty but a current student there. i would say there isn't a best time to submit an application. just make sure the application reaches their hands before the dateline.
i'm not sure how many percent of international students were accepted out of those who applied, but i don't think its that hard to be accepted by IMU. As long as you meet the minimum requirements, you should be called for the interview. And the interview is just basic questions. i was asked to introduce myself, talk a bit about my family, asked why i wanted to do medicine as opposed to the other life sciences courses, then was asked a scenario based question which is very easy (you're a doctor. you just saved this patient's life from the brink of death. he rewards you with a full expense paid trip overseas. would you accept?).

don't be too hung up on your summative results. concentrate on the eos (and don't waste your 4 weeks!!)

skip the bs stuff if you have no time (i remember only a few oba questions coming out from bs).
but as for physiology, pathology and pharmaco.... each one is equally as important.
as for osce... i just can tell you to practise practise practise. remember GIEP (greeting, introduction, explanation, permission!! each earns you marks), washing your hands and warming your hands before touching the patient.
when washing your hand... make sure you don't put too much soap. takes time to wash it all off.
all the stations are pretty straight forward (much easier than the mock i remembered. they'll tell you to palpate+auscultate, or palpate and percuss). so follow them exactly. no extra marks will be given if you do anything else.
for meq... try not to panic and think carefully (but not too long) before writing the answer down. i find that many (myself included) start scribbling down the answer only to realize what we were writing is wrong. esp pathophysio qws
ospe.. as always is horrible. as opposed to meq.. i recommend to just scribble down whatever that comes to mind during an ospe paper. you can always review the qws you were unsure about in the rest stations.

can't remember anything else.

This post has been edited by monkeygirl: Oct 30 2009, 01:23 AM

simplyfaii>> i'm not quite sure actually. but you should submit it by the end of june. you can try emailing them. or better yet, call them directly

This post has been edited by monkeygirl: Oct 31 2009, 12:09 AM

i didn't notice if all the meqs are from PBLs. and i can't remember any of the meq qws i got last time :/ (i got one on crohn's disease)
as for the bs and cm qws... i honestly just tembak most of them. yes, some are just common sense, but some are really specific and weird (i think i had one oba where they asked which emotion would a patient feel after he/she had a heart attack. or some weird crap like that. and the answers were really close to each other (anxiety, anger, sadness, can't remember the other options)).

i can't remember the answer for the bs one. i tend to forget all about the exam once it's over
but people were arguing over the answer hence i only could remember that particular one

The crohns one went something this (it's not word for word and i might be missing out on a few other information; but just to give you a clue..):
a middle aged lady coming to the clinic complaining of blood found in the stool. then the doctor performed a rectal endoscopy.
then they asked what other investigations you would do, i think give 3 differential diagnosis, and what were the indications for a rectal endoscope.
part 2/3: endoscope revealed ulcerations with skip lesions (yeah... it's pretty straight forward that it must be crohns). then they asked differences between UC and crohns. + some other qws.

i think i might have mix up the part 1,2 and 3.

i would say our meqs during eos were similar to the ones we had during summatives.
oh yeah.. we had a whole emq on asthma medication. matching their action to the drug name

coolguess>> a lot of people also performed badly for their summative 1 (cvs/respi) in my batch. but the grades improved a lot for summative 2 (haemato/git). so i think you're right about the upward trend for the 2nd summatives.

This post has been edited by monkeygirl: Nov 5 2009, 12:30 AM

i'm surprised you didn't know about this. yes, IMU students typically only has 2 hrs of lecture/ day. but that's not including the 2x weekly PBL sessions, the clinical sessions we have every week, or once every 2 weeks depending on the system we're studying, and the occasional pathology, histology labs.

i agree that 2 hrs of lecture/day is not what i expected when i came into IMU also. a lot of us in sem 1 were complaining that everything in IMU was about self studying and we are basically paying for the cert we are getting.
in the end, we just suck it up and studied cause complain all you want... 2 lectures/day is what has been done for so many other batches. as for the facilities, every batch has been complaining. and IMU is improving... but at a snail's pace. before the renovation... did you know that the library was much smaller and there's weren't as many computer labs.
if you really want to boycott, you can go ahead and tell every potential medical student friend what they are paying for... but i doubt it'll make any difference.
All the rich kids that don't care about anything actually made their choice either because:
1) imu is the only med uni in m'sia where you can end up graduating with a foreign degree. (apart from monash, which btw is more expensive than IMU). this is for those who want to work overseas.
2) for those ppl doing IMU-seremban, is mostly because the campus is located within the klang valley and seremban is quite close to KL, where they are from. And the entire course's fees is still cheaper than monash and manipal. no idea about aimst or mahsa's fees.

u would think that we are learning less than other medical students... but actually we are learning just as much. except they condense our learning material into 1 hr of lectures.
and btw, dentistry students don't have 2 hrs/day. they are essentially in the uni from 9-5 because of their packed schedule.

oh... i just thought that the free time IMU med students have are pretty infamous.


famous questions for EOS3? blood vessel and the bronchial tree anatomy was one of the "spotted" qws but didn't come out for ours. heart anatomy was one of the spotted qws and did come out.


i think they don't normally reuse the questions though as i didn't get the biliary tree one for EOS 2. i think i got anatomy of male repro though.
oh yea, all the best to those who are sitting for exams XD