PBL, Integrated, Traditional..?

So if you've started to look into studying Medicine and maybe started looking at universities, you've probably seen the words "PBL", "Integrated" and "Traditional" popping up everywhere. I thought I'd make a post just to help anyone who's confused about what these mean.

Problem-Based Learning (PBL)
The newest way of teaching medical students. In PBL, you have an assigned teaching group. At the start of a week or two-week period you and your group are given a "problem". This is usually about a patient who has some symptoms perhaps. Within your group you will have to figure out what you already know about the symptoms and what could be causing them, what you need to know in order to be able to better understand the problem and figure it out. Each person will then be assigned a different aspect of the problem to try to answer, and then at the end of the week or two week period they will come back to their PBL group and teach them what they've learnt and researched. Throughout that next week or two weeks, the lectures and seminars you have will be based around the problem you are studying. You won't be left completely on your own - each PBL group has a supervisor who asks the correct questions to ensure that the group is going down the right path in dealing with the problem.

Personally, I don't like the idea of PBL as I prefer to be taught in a lecture - I like to be told what I'm learning, and to have it explained to me by an expert rather than someone who has just learnt it themselves. As well as that, I don't like the fact you would have to rely on other people to do the work for you. If they don't research their part, then noone will know about that specific section of the problem.

However, PBL could be beneficial if you enjoy private-study and self directed learning - it will definitely help it go in more, and also if you enjoy working in a group and being taught by other students.

Universities which do mainly PBL: University of East Anglia (UEA), Hull-York Medical School (HYMS), Manchester, Keele, Exeter, Glasgow

Traditional
This is at the other end of the spectrum to PBL. The Traditional course has a very strong pre-clinical/clinical divide. This means that for the first two years of your teaching you will only be taught in lectures, seminars and tutorials and will have no clinical contact (that is, no hospital visits or clinical skills), and will be taught the science of medicine basically. After those two years, you will then move onto the clinical part of the course. You will be based in hospitals and will also learn clinical skills, and still be taught a bit about diseases.

The traditional option is good if you want to know everything before you start doing anything clinical or anything with patients. It's good if you're very strong academically and enjoy having lots of work all at once.

However, the negative part of the traditional course is that sometimes it can be difficult to relate what you're learning as you never see it in real life. In addition, you may sometimes feel demotivated as you don't get to experience what being a doctor is like and may think "why am I doing this?"

Universities which are Traditional: Queen's University Belfast, Cambridge, Oxford,

Integrated
This seems to be the approach that most medical schools take to teaching medicine. The integrated course has a bit of everything in it, although still with a slight pre-clinical/clinical divide. In your first two years you'll have maybe a bit of PBL, a few hospital and GP visits, a lot of lectures and seminars and you'll learn some clinical skills too. After these two years, you'll then go on to have attachments in hospitals whilst still learning some clinical skills and putting your knowledge into practice a lot more. You'll also still have some lectures and will have a lot more patient contact. The integrated curriculum does vary between different medical schools - with some having more early patient contact than others.

The integrated course is what appeals to me the most. The early patient contact is so valuable because it will help to motivate you and make sure that you can deal with patients, and enable you to relate what you've learnt to an actual real life situation. You'll also still be taught in lectures and so will be taught by an expert, but will have the opportunity to ask questions in your seminars, and get to know a few clinical skills.

Some negatives to the integrated course could be that you only like one type of teaching, or you don't feel comfortable being exposed to patients so early. As well as that you might not enjoy lectures and seminars, and would enjoy working in a small group where you could ask your peers questions.

Universities which are Integrated: Newcastle, Leeds, Birmingham, Cardiff, Nottingham, Bristol, Brighton, Dundee, Durham, Edinburgh, Guy's and St. Thomas', King's, Imperial, Leicester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Southampton, St. George's.

So those are all the types of different medical courses, I really hope this helps clear up any questions any has. These are just my opinions, and you might find you'd love a PBL course so don't take everything I say to heart!

Update

So I know it's been a while since I last posted on this blog, so I just thought I'd write an update about what's happened over the last few months.

The first and most important thing: I applied to Medical School! After hours of slaving over my personal statemen and studying for the UKCAT, I finally got it finished and sent off my UCAS form.

I had an interview at one of the universities I applied to in mid-November, and I feel like it went quite well! The panel who interviewed me were lovely and they weren't trying to catch me out - they definitely tried to make me feel at ease, and if I got a bit stuck they wouldn't try and keep pushing and pushing me for an answer if my mind went blank (which unfortunately did happen just once). I felt like I could answer the questions - hopefully it was good enough for me to get in! Fingers crossed.

I also got an offer to study Biochemistry as my backup - hopefully I won't have to take up this offer, but it's still nice to just have one offer when I log onto my UCAS Track page.

I've also obviously got my AS grades - I was really happy with them and they were good enough to allow me to apply to medical school so that was great!

I've started A2! It's quite difficult, but hopefully I can manage it for the rest of the year. I've dropped French and continued with Biology, Chemistry and Maths and they're all so interesting.

It is quite difficult seeing everybody get offers when you know that you're not going to get any offers until around March, but then everybody else who's applying to medicine is in the same boat as you. I'm watching all of the threads for the applicants to my universities on The Student Room, and it can be quite nerve-wracking, especially when you see other people getting interviews at a university you applied to!

I'm trying to keep up to date by reading the BMJ and BBC News, and I follow some of the Medical Schools on twitter, as they sometimes post about the medical research that their university is undertaking.

So that's just a little update about what's going on! Hopefully I'll try to post on here more often - sorry for slacking!