mediscope
Manchester Medical School
Paris L’hôpital Bichat
Madrid Hospital La Paz
Thoracic Surgery, Vascular Surgery, Lung Transplantation.
Internal Medicine
Thomas Kelley
Andrew Doyle
irstly from my experience you learn a lot of medicine/surgery. Many of the medical words are very similar in French to what they are in English and so you can generally understand what’s going on even if you didn’t know the word beforehand. Most of the doctors speak English anyway so they can probably give you a helping hand when you get stuck. In France they do 3 years preclinical and 3 years clinical. The clinical students have much more responsibility than we do in England. For example, I was the resident on call all day and all night on my third Sunday. Therefore, any vascular/thoracic problems either in A&E or on the ward would come through to me first of all. If I could deal with it then I would, otherwise I would ring the interne who would be at home. This sounds scary, which it is (!) but you learn lots and develop confidence. Therefore, I do think it’s good for learning and developing medical skills. You need to force yourself to speak French as some doctors/students will see you as an opportunity to practise their English. Providing you do this the experience should really help you develop your language skills. I would recommend coming with someone from Manchester. I went by myself and for the first 10 days or so it was fairly lonely in the evenings. The Bichat hospital is really good and has a wide range of specialities. It’s a teaching hospital so they’re generally used to having students around and it’s also good as you get a chance to mix with the french medical students. Overall I would definitely recommend you doing at least one SSC in a country where your language is spoken. If you have any questions or want any information about accommodation/contact details etc then do not hesitate to contact me:
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A
Thomas.kelley@student.manchester.ac.uk
Andrew.Doyle@student.manchester.ac.uk
education
The European Option is hard work: attending lessons after a long day at hospital and maintaining a good level of fluency in a second language whilst keeping on top of medicine can be difficult. However, the pay back for this is that you are able to do Phase 2 SSCs in European cities. Undoubtedly, it is an excellent way to see how another healthcare system works, to develop your skills in the language and at the same time to travel and to see different parts of Europe. What do current students have to say about their time spent doing a European Option SSC?
fter studying Spanish for 10 years and waking up to yet another rainy English sky to go to hospital, I could not wait to organise my own SSC. I had previously fallen in love with Madrid for it’s quirky yet cosmopolitan atmosphere and decided this was where I wanted to spend the last four weeks of my third year. Despite the notorious reputation of Spaniards and their ‘mañana’ lifestyle, organising a placement was relatively easy. I got in touch with a consultant of General Medicine at the Hospital La Paz (part of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) who was more than happy to receive a student with whom he could practise his English in return for some teaching. On my first day, I arrived rather apprehensively for the morning ward round but was eagerly awaited by the consultant and his four ‘residentes’. Each of them looked after 3 to 4 patients who were then overseen by the consultant. A typical day was non-stop from 8 am with twice daily ward-rounds, chasing up investigations, going to seminars then finishing at 4 pm. I was frequently given one-to-one teaching and had the opportunity to examine and take histories from patients. Living in Madrid is enjoyable despite the chaos of being a capital. Rented accommodation is plentiful using websites such as loquo.com and there are also a large number of hostels in the city. Travelling was straightforward with a compact city centre and a cheap, well-established metro system. Food is also affordable with plenty of variety and bars and cafes open late into the night giving the city a constantly vibrant atmosphere. Doing a placement in a Spanish hospital gave me the opportunity not only to practice my language skills but to develop my self-confidence. Forward-planning and good communication are always essential to get the most of experiences like this but I found the effort extremely rewarding.
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