GUMS+ Electives and Selectives Guide
May 2014
contents Letter from the Editors ...........................2 Electives and Selectives Night............... 5 Selectives - what’s on offer.....................6 Elective Admin........................................7 Elective experiences .............................8
GUMS is a student-run organisation, operated by and for students of the Griffith School of Medicine. Copyright © 2014 GUMS. Edited by Jasmine Carter and Nicola Campbell. Enquires and reprinting requests should be sent to publications@gums.org.au. All information represents the views of the individual authors, and are correct to the best of our knowledge at the time of printing. This edition has been brought to you by the number 4 and the letter Y.
Griffith University Medicine Society (GUMS) was founded in 2005, and has since grown into a respected organisation representing the medical students of Griffith University. GUMS provides advocacy and support through its academic, social, wellbeing and community activities. In 2014, we aim to: - advance and promote the interests of students - provide a supportive setting and promote healthy living and positive coping mechanisms - enrich the school’s social and academic environment - promote the health of the community through community projects and charity functions - promote positive interactions with students to members of the health care field GUMS is your society - sign up and join in!
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letter from the editors Hello fearless reader, and welcome to the inaugral GUMS Electives and Selectives Guide! We hope you find this guide almost as useful in planning your elective as stalking your favourite medical/travel blog, and that you find all (or most of your questions) within the bounds of these pages. Both of us have had moments in lectures where stare into the distance, imagining practising tropical and rural medicine alongside the sandy beaches of Fiji, learning internal medicine at a Centre of Excellence in the UK (in between touristing around London), or mastering a different type of medical practice in a developing country. Knowing what on Earth to do with your valuable elective (and just as important selective!) is tricky, and we hope that from the following you extract some ideas on what to do, and how these exciting rotations work! Your final year at medical school (final year of being a broke student!) are an exciting time, and we hope that this guide will help answer a few questions and allay some fears, so that you can get the most out of your rotations. If we could summarise what we’ve learnt in putting this guide together, it would probably be: 1) It’s never too early to start thinking about what you want to do - but keep your plans loosey goosey in case things change! 2) If you have a great idea, write it down! Scrawl it on your scrubs if you need to, but if you have a streak of genius, don’t lose it to forgetfulness! 3) Plan big and have fun. Why not? Please let us know if you have any ideas on how we can make this publication bigger and better next year, the more you get out of it, the more the late nights we spend putting this together are worth it! Yours in print, Jasmine and Nicola GUMS Publications Officers 2014 E: publications@gums.org.au
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MIGA Elective Grants Program for medical students MIGA’s annual Elective Grants Program provides financial assistance to medical students undertaking their elective in developing communities. The Program offers up to six Grants of $3,500, each consisting of: • A $2,000 Elective Grant to assist in funding the student’s elective • A $1,500 Medical Support Grant to assist in the purchase of medical or other aid for the community the student visits. One Grant is reserved for awarding to an Indigenous medical student applicant. The 2014 Program is open to current medical students in Australia who are student members of MIGA and wish to undertake an elective program in a developing community between March 2014 and February 2015. This year applications open on 5 May 2014 and close on 29 August 2014. Further information and an Application Form are available at MIGA’s website (http://www.miga.com.au/content.aspx?p=57) or by contacting MIGA’s marketing team on 1800 777 156 or at marketing@miga.com.au. You should also jump on MIGA’s website to check out the experiences of past Grant recipients. They all share their incredible journeys, including photographs of their time in the local communities. Destinations visited are many and varied – from Cambodia, Vietnam and Nepal, to Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana, to Peru, Belize and Ecuador, to Alice Springs, East Timor and Papua New Guinea! It’s the perfect place to learn more about your options and form some ideas on what you can expect to encounter. It’s also helpful to know that your free student insurance from MIGA includes cover for elective placements worldwide. Providing your elective is approved by the Medical School, cover is automatic – there is no need to notify MIGA of your intention to travel, nor is your elective cover subject to an approval process. To join MIGA via a simple online Application Form and receive immediate confirmation of your cover ahead of your elective, visit MIGA’s website (https://members.miga.com.au/db/dbweb.asp?dbcgm=1&ac=sl).
electives/selectives night Weren’t able to make it to the GUMS Electives and Selectives Evening? We got your back. Our handy secretary Emily Watkins provides you with a summary of the questions and presentations of the evening! Changes to Fourth Year as of 2015 (Presented by Claire Harrison): New Structure - Start date now early Jan - Organised into five seven week blocks - Two week break between blocks 3 and 4 - Formative MCQ mid year - Summative exams at end of year - Prep for intern activities after exams Why our year? The change has been discussed over a few years - Requires collaboration between Bond and Griffith, placement Were sites, academic sites students and clinicians. consulted? - Aug 2013: curricular planning day with student reps present - Oct 2013: change was approved by Education Committee with student reps also present -
Why the change? - Main driver for the change is that it is felt that it will increase the educational benefit for the cohort of year 4 - There is increased choice of selectives by having them spread across the year - 7 weeks better for becoming integrated in team - Exams at end of year gives more time to consolidate knowledge of year 1-4 Is the change easier for admin? - No – the workload is probably increased
Elective Timings: - Swaps are possible - Results in more choices for electives over the course of the year, by avoiding busy elective times in centres of excellence or popular placements - Four or eight week rotations at centres of excellence can be accomodated for on a case by case bases - these should be directed to Prof Harry McConnell
Other Notes: There shoudn’t be less focus on electives due to exams – electives should be considered educationally valuable, and should help to cover the nearly 2000 Lis over the four year course. Orientation can be skipped if you need to travel, but ONLY if you are going back to the placement site you were at previously. If not, you may need to arrange a swap.
A big thank you to our academic officer Anne Gonzalves for putting together a fabulous electives and selectives night, and to our secretary Emily Watkins for taking notes from the evening!
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selectives - what’s on offer One of the other elements of the forth year program that allows you to tailor your study and experiences to match your interests, is the selection of a Selective. A Selective is a 7 week block selected, as the name would suggest, from a list of possible placements organised by Griffith across a range of locations. The exact placements and areas available vary from year to year depending on availability, however the SoM has provided us with a list of placements offered in 2013 as an example as to the areas that may be available in 2015 for Selectives. o Oncology o General Practice o Radiology o ATODS o Rehab/Geriatrics o Plastics o Renal o Orthopaedics o Neurology o Opthamology o Cardiology o Respiratory o Indigenous Health o Endocrinology o ENT o Gastroenterology o General Medicine o Infectious Diseases o Paediatrics o Obstetrics and gynaecology o Anaesthetics
Your elective is the first step in an exciting journey, and MDA National is here to support you from day one by partnering with The Electives Network to provide Australian medical students with the ultimate resource for planning your medical elective. What’s more, if you are an MDA National Student Member, you can access this amazing resource for free! Electives are important, and often formative, experiences for students, defining how tomorrow’s doctors aspire to make a difference. Over the last 11 years, the Electives Network has helped tens of thousands of medical students plan their elective placements. The site can help you find your dream placement – anywhere from a remote clinic in the jungles of Papua New Guinea to a cutting-edge hospital amongst the skyscrapers of London. Here’s what you can access through the Electives Network site: Details of 2,547 hospitals in 148 countries. 3,536 student reviews giving you the real low-down on each elective An interactive planner to help you with every step of the way to take-off! MDA National Members can access the Electives Network resource by logging in with your MDA National Member number. (If you are already a Member but not yet registered for our Member Online Services you can register online). Not an MDA National Member yet? Apply Now If you are not currently an MDA National Member, it’s simple to join, and its FREE! Read more about the range of benefits available with your FREE student membership and indemnity insurance cover.
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...how do i elective? Have no clue how to even start organising your elective? Not super keen on reading policies to figure out how to? Here’s a quick summary!
Organising Electives What are they? Electives are a seven week block in an area of your choosing. They provide the opportunity to gain experience and learn about a clinical or non-clinical medical discipline you are interested or to conduct/assist in research.
Where can I go? Pretty much anywhere. You can seek to arrange an elective within the hospitals normally used by the Griffith School of Medicine, elsewhere in Australia or anywhere in the world. Is there a catch? Electives must be considered "appropriate for your professional development" and approved.There are some restrictions surrounding international destinations and placements. Mainly being that countries with DFAT travel advice that falls in the categories of "reconsider your need to travel" and "do not travel" will not be approved. Also bear in mind that DFAT warnings are subject to change and if the warnings are upgraded to reconsider/do not travel you will not be able to go on your elective and may have to return to Australia if you are part way through. A destination that has advice along the lines of "exercise a high degree of caution" means you will have to supply additional information and justification in order to be approved. How do electives get approved/ how do I actually pull this off? All electives require an online elective application which must be approved by the Clinical Sub Dean at least 6 weeks in advance (from the start of your elective block). The online elective application tool and more information about the process of organising electives is now available on L@G (under Year 4 > Administration). Further documentation is required for overseas electives - includes info regarding travel warnings, health risks etc. If you are travelling to a country where English is not the first language you will need to provided an explanation as to how you will communicate with your patients. All costs are to be covered by the student including travel insurance, health precautions, accommodation, placement fees and visa requirements. Keep your eye out for scholarships and grants that may be available, eg The Griffith Study Abroad and Exchange Program has the potential to assist financially with electives at Centres of Excellence. With thanks to Debbie Lynch The information in this article has been adapted from the Griffith SoM Electives Policy v 18. More up-to-date information is available on L@G.
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elective experiences Johnno Davies, a Griffith med alumni, gives us a glimpse into his incredible experiences in Cape Town.
I arrived in Cape Town late at night following a 16-hour flight from Sydney, via Johannesburg. I was in South Africa to complete my 4 week trauma elective in Tyger berg Hospital; a 1400 bed teaching hospital that services approximately half of the Western Cape Province and along with the Groote Schuur Hospital treats the vast majority of trauma cases in the region, which includes the Cape Flats – a large area of townships home to some of Cape Town’s poorest people. The next day, we had an 8am meeting with the International Student Office to discuss expectations and logistics during our 4 week elective in the Trauma Department of Tygerberg Hospital. The meeting was brief, and afterwards we were told to head to the trauma ward for the department orientation until the afternoon. The dingy, slightly dated trauma ward consisted of one waiting room with approximately 20 chairs, a corridor, and around 20 beds across three rooms - although apparently this is only half of the ward, with the other half under refurbishment (though not a single builder was seen during the entire 4 week period). Upon arriving on the ward, we met one of the registrars: “We’re really busy this morning, and I believe in trial by fire, so, this is where we keep the patient files, go see some patients.” Luckily, there were two other Griffith students who had chosen the same elective, so we adopted a team approach. The patient was sat on a trolley in the hallway as there were no beds free on the ward, and he was covered in blood. He had been bottled last night in a fight and had not been seen by a doctor yet. We slowly and carefully took a history, and handed over to the registrar before being given another patient who needed suturing after a similar attack. This relatively simple task was complicated by the fact that the patient would not stay still, and tried to pull away whenever we injected the local anaesthetic. The prevalence of HIV in patients visiting the trauma ward is extremely high, and despite wearing all the appropriate PPE, adrenaline was pumping. After those first couple of hours in the ward, we had the feeling that it was going to be a crazy month. We had no idea. You can work in the ward whenever you want, however it is by far the busiest at night and on weekends. Each night over the weekend we would see approximately 70 stabbings and a handful of gunshot wounds in addition to other presentations. The ward was staffed by 2 registrars and whichever local students turned up (usually they were in their first year of practical so weren’t too much help) so we literally doubled the medical staff on the ward. Given the fact that the ward has only twenty beds, it goes without saying that the ward is often overflowing. One particular Saturday night I arrived at 4pm and stayed till 7am the next morning. There were so many patients coming in that the corridors were full of bodies, bleeding and groaning. One man came to the ward with a knife sticking out of his shoulder, but he waited in the corridor for 3 hours until anybody could spare the time to see him.
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elective experiences During that night I put in a chest drain (and helped with many more), helped reinsert a man’s intestines through a stab wound (under local), assisted in amputating a man’s leg, closed a deep wound in layers, sutured countless slash and stab wounds and watched a man who had been stabbed in the neck’s bleeding be controlled by a urinary catheter balloon. One 17 year-old lady I worked up had been stabbed in the back nearly 10 times with a screwdriver, when I arrived for my shift the next evening she was still sleeping on the floor. Another man in a hard collar was complaining about the waiting time, when I asked how long it was since he’d been seen by a doctor he told me it had been 3 days. Other interesting cases included: a man who had been stabbed in the side of the head, the only injury being a severed optic nerve; a gangster who had been shot in the head and the bullet miraculously avoided the cranial cavity (CT revealed that this was the second time this 20 year-old had been shot in the head and lived); one man who had been stabbed in the back and presented with knife still embedded in his spine (with some weakness in the lower limbs) and another gangster who presented after being attacked with interesting neurology in addition to fresh stab wounds (x-ray revealed he had been walking around with a bullet in his lumbar spine for the past 2 years). Another experience on offer is to join an ambulance crew for a 12 hour shift alongside the paramedics. Shifts run between 7 and 7 during the day or overnight. If the shift is quiet the paramedics take you around some of the poorest neighbourhoods in the Cape Flats, visiting the local medical centres where hundreds of people queue for antenatal appointments or wait in line all day to receive their TB medications. On busy shifts you can expect a variety of motor vehicle accident trauma, gunshots and stabbings, as well as drug overdoses and acute medical emergencies. My shifts on the ambulance were a great way of exploring the Townships in relative safety, and even getting to see what life is like inside the houses of people who live there.
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elective experiences Cape Town Activities Of course, Cape Town is an amazing place, and we weren’t stuck in the trauma ward all the time. There is so much to do around the city such as climbing Table Mountain, wine tasting in Stellenbosch, diving with great white sharks, and visiting local (surprisingly hipster) markets at Hout Bay or the Old Biscuit Mill. Another awesome experience was going for a Sunday session barbecue (or ‘braai’) in Gugulethu, one of the large Townships. It is relatively safe during the day and people really know how to party there. The university accommodation also provides a great environment to meet students from other countries, and traditionally all students get together for a social braai on Wednesdays before calling the craziest taxi ever and heading to Town. Elective Details The elective is overseen by the University of Stellenbosch, which offers experiences in all kinds of specialties at Tygerberg Hospital. The accommodation is provided at the Tygerberg Campus and is a short walk to the hospital, or you can arrange your own. Fees are payable for affiliation with the university, temporary student registration with the South African Medical Board, and accommodation. Waiting lists are lengthy for terms in Trauma (up to 2 years) or Emergency (approx 1 year), but it pays to send in a CV with your enquiry. For more information the below contacts may be useful (be aware that it may take many emails to receive a response…) International Student Coordinators: Mariska April and Valerie Dietrichs – intertyg@sun.ac.za Accommodation Coordinator: Surita Riffel – suritar@sun.ac.za Overall the elective was an awesome exerience that really puts things in perspective. I would thoroughly recommend Tygerberg Hospital for an elective, as long as you have a strong stomach, level head, steady hands, and can tolerate really, really bad smells.
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