PBL

Today was such a long day. I had a one hour lecture this morning at 9 and from there, I went straight to the library to get a good chunk of work done. I breaked once for lunch and then again to get a hot choloate from the Costa nearby and worked till about half 5.

I am so knackered. Sitting in the library and working so intensively has worn me out. The module I am doing now is on the first two trimesters of pregnancy. There is so much anatomy, physiology, histology etc to learn about the female and male reproductive systems not to mention the different changes that occur each week during pregnancy. Besides that we have to look at other changes that take place in a man and woman's body to prepare for reproduction. I have so much to learn before my PBL session on Monday. Because my course is set out in a PBL format that means that we have to do much of the work ourselves. We have one hour pleneries each morning but they are not great in terms of content. They are just introductory lectures to guide us in the right direction.

For those of you who don't know what PBL is - it stands for problem based learning. This is a relatively new format used by medical schools to structure learning. Quite a few universities have introduced it; moving away from a traditional degree programme made up of lectures, tutorials and lab sessions. We have 3 PBL sessions per module. Each module last two weeks. We are put into groups of about 8 and each group has a facilitator who is there to guide us in the right direction. In the first session of each module, we are given a scenario of a patient with details of their ilness as well as some relevant background info. We have to pull the scenario apart and come up with key learning objectives. We then go away and learn the key concepts for the module and come back a week later to disucuss what we have learnt. This is done to check our understanding and share our knowledge with others in the group. We then go away and learn anything else that we may have missed for the 3rd session three days after and do the same. At the end of the two weeks we should know the body system i.e. cardiovascular, reproductive etc highlighted in the scenario back to front.

PBL is a rather intensive way of learning and does have its disadvantages. But we have control over our learning and can go into as much depth as we see fit. I have my next PBL session on Monday and have quite a few objectives yet cover. So it looks like I am going to be spending saturday and sunday in the library as well.

I came back at about 6 and after having a shower and chatting with my family over the phone I sat down to watch a movie "no strings attached" on my laptop with some chocolate cake that I bought from Tesco on my way back from the library. It was nice. I could relax, lie down and enjoy a good easy going film. I am now going to get some sleep and get up tomorrow and go the library again. Fun times! This is the life of a medical student!