Thu 8 Mar 2007
the course at auckland
Posted by lordgarlic under Uncategorized
so, I don’t know if there are many NZ students on MSO but I think it would make a great post just to briefly go over the course in general here at Auckland and a sample of what a week in MBChB-2 is like.
The course at Auckland is split into 4 separate domains:
Acquisition and application of medical knowledge
Professional, Clinical and research skills
Hauora Maori (akin to indigenous health in AUS)
Population Health and Primary Health Care (Auckland has a massive Population Health department 
)
So, in year 2, students do 8 papers (or some call it courses). Each individual course covers the 4 domains, or at least tries to cover 3 if a 4th is not applicable. (e.g. in the Musculoskeletal System course, the Hauora Maori domain is not covered because there doesn’t seem to be a big issue with Maori health in the musculoskeletal system aspects).
The 8 papers covered in year 2 therefore are:
Semester 1: Musculoskeletal System, Digestive system, Professional Development (which is like ethics, comm. skills, psychology, child development etc), and part I of Principles of Medicine (which is a lot of pathology, pharmacology and other bits and pieces)
Semester 2: Cardiovascular System, Respiratory System, Genitourinary System and Part II of Principles of medicine.
The course here has had major overhauls in the last 10 years and as such, the systems papers are integrated it terms of anatomy, clinical scenarios, pathology, histology etc. It is not longer sorted into ONE anatomy paper and ONE physiology paper. This brings a new approach to learning and it really is great to learn about clinical aspects as you go through anatomy to get a better understanding (plus its more interesting haha).
One thing unique to us here in Auckland is that we don’t have PBL (problem based learning). For those who are unaware, PBL has been rapidly developing in Australia over the last 10 or so years and involves being presented with scenarios each week and working through them as a group, learning the anatomy, pathology, clinical management behind it as a group. Why Auckland hasn’t adapted this approach I’m not sure. But our slightly more traditional approach still works and I enjoy it.
Also, we get 4 hours of cadaver dissections each week which is really awesome for reinforcing the musculoskeletal system anatomy lectures. The dissection process allows you to spatially orientate yourself with the muscles and also see other structures along the way like the adipose tissue, the different nerves (e.g. sciatic nerve), vessels (e.g. great saphenous vein).
So, enough of me rambling on about my course, lets present my timetable for next week haha. Its not exactly the friendliest timetables but getting 2 half days is a nice thing
Monday: 8-9 (DS), 9-10 (MSS), 1030-1230 cadaver dissection, 1230-1 radiology tutorial, 2-5 digestive system lab
Tuesday: 8-9 (DS clinical session which i dunno what it is), 12-1 (DS)
Wednesday: 8-9 (POM), 10-11 (POM), 2-3 (MSS), 330-5 cadaver dissection
Thursday: 8-9 (MSS), 10-11 (child and Family Study (more about this next blog update), 11-12 (C & FS workshop), 12-1 (PD), 2-4 (PD workshop)
Friday: 8-9 (PD), 9-10 (MSS), 1030-12 (MSS microanatomy workshop), 12-1 (POM)
for those who are lost, MSS is musculoskeletal, DS is digestive system, PD is prof. development and POM is priniciples of medicine
anyways, comments are always appreciated
~adios from Auckland
March 10th, 2007 at 12:05 am
i’m so jealous! i want the old system so i can do dissections too!
(sounds like hard work with the whole intense full on-ness, but eventually i’ll put a post on my course up too…)
it sounds good that you get the Hauora Maori influence on your course though - we don’t get enough aboriginal health really and it worries me - we get a small amount, but it never really seems that relevant but it’s such a big issue…
anyway, my comment is getting pretty long, so i’ll be quiet now. keep posting! you’re interesting!
March 14th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
the thing I’ve observed when comparing curriculums (god i have too much time haha) is that there is significantly less indigenous health content in australian medical school curriculums in contrast to what we have here. Also in seems the Maori health is definitely a dominant issue here but has definitely improved over the last half decade to the point where the maori life expectancy is about 10 years less than the european new zealander life expectancy. If I recall correctly, its about a 20 year different in the outcome gap in australia for indigenous people and european descent australians?
March 20th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
while i think that life expectancy is a fairly crude measurement of health levels, your numbers are completely correct…
but you have to also take into consideration the many disabling problems that people of aboriginal descent are much much more likely to encounter (diabetes, rheumatic fever, etc…) - i think that these detract even more from a relatively short life span and that obviously the current system isn’t meeting the needs of the population (maori health on the other hand, appears to be handled much better…)