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Originally Posted by MagicalME
can you please talk about them? I would really appreciate it
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Alright I'll do this once. I've been in Sligo General Hospital since Sept. 2005. I am finishing up the last core here before returning home to do electives in the US/Canada. That means for those who don't know I will have completed 42 weeks here. As far as the length of time, excluding 1 week off during christmas and just before starting Obs gyn I've had 4 weeks off which I had scheduled for myself. So far no student has had trouble starting a rotation when they have wanted to start except for Obs/gyn here. Obs/Gyn is a smaller department in SGH and thus takes fewer students. The best time to take obs/gyn here is during the summer when typically the only medical students here are MUA students (Several Irish medical schools send their students for rotations here), and seniority does play a rule in who will get it first, or at least thats the way it seems anyways.
As far as clinical experience goes, I would say you get out of the rotation what you put into it.
That being said, If you show intiative they will give you more responsibility.
I personally have gotten experience in putting in Canulas, male urinary catheters, taking ABG's, taking bloods, writing in the notes (with a senior member of the team signing off on my work), writing discharge summaries (with a senior member of the team signing off on my work), admitting patients, scrubbing in for surgery and assisting in surgery ect.. ect..
As far as I am concerned I found the medical education excellent, although not 100% organized at times. Sometimes it is up to you as the student to go to the medical or Surgical tutor or even members on your team to schedule tutorials.
I suppose thats something else I will touch on as well. The hiearchy over here for medicine in general is such that you will have your consultant, he is at the top of the food chain, next comes registrars, these guys are typically been in that field of medicine for 4-5+ years, after that you have your SHO (Senior House Officer) who would have been in the field anyware from a min of 1 year up to typically 3 years, and below the SHO is the intern, who in their first year will do 6 months surgical and 6 months medical training.
Cost wise it depends on you really. I'm a fairly sociable person so I would typically spend more on certain things than others. But I would say $1000 - 1300 US would be the upper limit of spending in a month which includes rent food utils and entertainment. As a bare minumum I would say 700$ a month you could get by on. In SGH there is a breakfast, lunch and dinner available at the cafteria which is free for med students, although I usually skip out on dinner cause it's typically not to my liking. That usually helps keep costs down.
Anything else you want to know PM me. Just note I don't check it regularly and I will get annoyed if you ask a billion annoying questions. I will try to be helpful and somewhat curtious.