Quote:
Originally Posted by PostModernPrometheus
the comments re: i understand that accomodations do need to be worked out, but needing learning facilities in the satellite hospitals for the 3rd and 4th year medical students is a little vague to me - medical students are typically doing clinical (hands on) work / rotations in their 3rd and 4th years...no real "classroom work" per se . . . computer access, some places to study and some small conference rooms with multimedia support would be the bare bone essentials. . .
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I'm a physician at the Moncton Hospital. You need to have more than "bare bones" to make this program work. What we are developing here is a distributed medical education program, somewhat similar to what exists at the new Northern Ontario Medical School which is based both in Thunder Bay and Sudbury.
It is true that 3rd and 4th year medical students (clinical clerks) spend the vast majority of their time on the floors but there is also time set aside for rounds (both clinical rounds and formal teaching rounds). In addition, there is also probably at least 10% formal classroom time. In a distributed education model, the lecturer may be in Saint John (or Moncton) but delivering his lecture via teleconferencing to all teaching hospitals in the network. Provisions have to be made so that students, no matter where they are, are able to ask questions during the lecture and be able to get immediate feedback from the lecturer. This usually means a sophisticated two way video teleconferencing system.
We already have facilities like this at the Moncton Hospital because we are already fairly heavily involved in medical education. We have 12 full time family practice residents at our hospital in the Northumberland Family Practice Teaching Program and we usually have about 8-12 other medical students or residents in the hospital at any one time as well. Other hospitals like the Miramichi Hospital may not be so fortunate however so it is important that the playing field be level before the program gets up and running. You can't do this overnight.
Accomodations for the students is extremely important. You might have a clerk do a three month surgery rotation in Fredericton, followed by a one month ophthalmology rotation in Saint John, followed by two months of emergency medicine in Moncton and one month of psychiatry in Miramichi. It can be a very itinerant lifestyle (I know). You need to have ready-made accomodations for the students. They can't be living in motels. The accomodations have to be up and running beforehand and this is a strict requirement for accreditation. There is a new student apartment building being constructed near the Moncton Hospital right now because the existing accomodations were found to be substandard.
It will also take time to acquire the medical human resources to staff this program. Take my word for it, the physicians in this province are too overwhelmed with work right now to take on this project without additional manpower. You can't amass the specialist teaching personnel to make this project work overnight. The devil is in the details and careful planning and recruitment is mandatory.
Bottom line, you don't want a rinky-dink program done on the cheap which quickly develops a poor reputation. You want a quality program able to attract top calibre teachers and students. We are talking about a medical school here! This should be something to be proud of.
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