Conflicts in choosing medical colleges (manipal and imu)

[mistywie]

im a pre-u student and i intend to pursue medical college later on.
when i search through i realised that manipal requires physics in a-levels.
so its a big NO obviously
and then we made up our mind to cont in IMU until my lec dropped the bomb.
she claims dat IMU lecs only teach for 2 hrs a day. after that they expect us to make our own research and stuffs.

they too claim dat this is how things are done in england.

so my lecturer feels dat if sum1 were to spend like 400k for a medicine course then imu is a waste.
but currently im kinda out of idea. i have no where to go.
aimst quality of education is doubted so do cyberjaya. and i believe in that.
i hope sumone cud help me with this. especially those who been to imu and manipal.

[slumber]

yeah imu only 2hrs lec. but manipal almost like a school, tight shedule, . going nuts with it.

[Miracle_seed]

Which course do you mean by IMU? Twinning or local programme?

[randywang]

I've applied IMU medical twinning programme!! I really think it is worth because eventually you will be awarded overseas degrees. But it is indeed true that IMU has 2 hours lecture a day. My sis was IMU ex student, she is now in UNSW. She said they had to engage in PBL, and evidence-based learning as well.

so, Mistywie, are u applying IMU? haha.. i have IMU interview on 2nd April. pretty scared. i dunno what kind of questions they gonna ask

[fishnet]

PBL system usually equates to short classes cuz they expect you to do your own research. And yes, it's the same in UK.

Did you apply for PMC? It's also a twinning programme but the clinical years are in Malaysia. Another option can be Monash Malaysia. A lot of people seem to have good things to say about this uni plus I heard that a lot of the good lecturers from IMU are now teaching in Monash. You do the whole course locally but you get awarded with a degree from Monash Australia. You can still apply for Monash if you want but you're going to sit for the ISAT test asap.

Some of my JPA friends in Manipal twinning told me that there are rumours that it will be closing down. >.< I'm definitely not too sure about that but with Manipal in India being derecognised by the Indian Medical Council and rumours the JPA MMC scholars may be transferred somewhere else, it just seems a bit risky to study there for now. I'll tell you that I'm not sure if the rumours are true but for such rumours to be circulating, it just doesn't seem very assuring la. Good luck.

[eve88]

Re: 2 hours of lecture per day - in a five day week there's 10 hours of lecture right there. And thats about standard for me -and i daresay most med students - I'm in NZ, its a reasonable med school here, not great, but im definately having a blast.

Plus, you'll have labs and tutorials no doubt. Contact time, which means, time with a teacher/lecturer/tutor per week is about 20 to 25 hours. The other half, which assumes a 40 hour work week, is for you to do your own learning - textbooks, readings, journal articles, homework, etc.

And if you want to learn, and can discipline yourself to study, it does not really matter which uni you go to as long as it is recognized.

[Miracle_seed]

Some of my JPA friends in Manipal twinning told me that there are rumours that it will be closing down. >.< I'm definitely not too sure about that but with Manipal in India being derecognised by the Indian Medical Council and rumours the JPA MMC scholars may be transferred somewhere else, it just seems a bit risky to study there for now. I'll tell you that I'm not sure if the rumours are true but for such rumours to be circulating, it just doesn't seem very assuring la. Good luck.MMMC has never been recognised by Indian Medical Council, but it is recognised by Malaysian students, I don't think there is any Indian students in the college, 90% are Malaysian students. The derecognition issue of Manipal only affects KMC.

[tsar]

Digression: PBL is used extensively in most UK medical universities. But apparently it's not so much emphasised in the traditional ones like Oxbridge. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Why Manipal and IMU? What about UCSI, Cyberjaya, Monash, MSU, PMC? Any ReCommers from those universities?

Personally though, between the private universities IMO Monash and IMU are the better options, though IMO any local U beats the private universities in terms of cost and teaching structure.

Anyone currently pursuing medicine that uses PBL? Please share how PBL works because I don't really understand it.

[eve88]

Tsar:

I've a brother doing med in Newcastle Uni, which does a fair bit of PBL, PM me if you're interested in getting into contact with him.

As for me (University of Otago), they don't call it PBL, but I think a part of what we do - Case Studies - is fairly similar.

What happens is they give you a scenario - a certain patient, these symptoms, etc - and ask you to figure out whats going on with the patient, and what may be causing it, and what can you do to help it, etc

So basically, you "study" by figuring out a fair bit by yourself, with small group discussions and so on.

[jingguo]

Digression: PBL is used extensively in most UK medical universities. But apparently it's not so much emphasised in the traditional ones like Oxbridge. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Why Manipal and IMU? What about UCSI, Cyberjaya, Monash, MSU, PMC? Any ReCommers from those universities?

Personally though, between the private universities IMO Monash and IMU are the better options, though IMO any local U beats the private universities in terms of cost and teaching structure.

Anyone currently pursuing medicine that uses PBL? Please share how PBL works because I don't really understand it.

Hi,

I am currently studying in IMU and I am in my 5th semester here. So here's my share of thoughts. At certain juncture my posts maybe slightly weighted in preference for IMU as I am only familiar with IMU as compared to other universities.

As compared to other private medical universities, IMU and Manipal have been amongst the early universities that establish their medical faculty in Malaysia, hence these two are of the more well known that the rest. And on top of that, these two universities are among the more affordable ones as compared to PMC and for those who are thinking of going overseas to further their education IMU and Manipal do provide a better option as they are less costly comparatively to other universities. Of course I do not mean to demean any other universities in other ways, I would say they are good too. But in view of financial implications, IMU and Manipal are the favourites.

IMU is using PBL as a part of our curriculum to complement lectures. PBL denotes Problem based learning, hence a medical problem (case) would be given to students in which they would need to derive learning issues (ie what to learn). It is done over in two sessions in a week about an hour and half each session.

To give an example:

In first session, students in groups of ten with a lecturer acting as a facilitator are given the trigger and discussion about the case is proceeded. Say the first part given was :
"A 56 year old man, was jogging in the park this morning. He suddenly had a chest pain which radiates to his left jaw and arm. He had a rest, felt better and went to the hospital to seek medical treatment. An ECG was done and there was inverted Q wave etc etc. He was properly managed and he was advised to maintain a healthy lifestyle as he is a known chronic smoker."

Hence, from this trigger student would discuss and figure out which issues to do their studies on. Thus amongst the issues that can be derived from the trigger would be:
1. What is he having?
2. What are angina/heart attack/myocardial infarction?
3. What are the risk factors for myocardial infarction? How is smoking related?
4. What are the causes of chest pain? etc etc.

After that, student would be given time to do their research and they would meet back on the second session to present their studies and discuss their findings.

[TheArtOfMedicine]

Digression: PBL is used extensively in most UK medical universities. But apparently it's not so much emphasised in the traditional ones like Oxbridge. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Why Manipal and IMU? What about UCSI, Cyberjaya, Monash, MSU, PMC? Any ReCommers from those universities?

Personally though, between the private universities IMO Monash and IMU are the better options, though IMO any local U beats the private universities in terms of cost and teaching structure.

Anyone currently pursuing medicine that uses PBL? Please share how PBL works because I don't really understand it.

I'm sorry to say this but your statement regarding 'PBL is used extensively in MOST UK med schools' is in fact, very misleading. There are only a few(namely Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and a couple new med schools like Peninsula and East Anglia)which take PBL as the main approach in their teaching, just like what IMU's doing. Many others only use PBL to supplement their lecture-based teaching.

In my opinion(not that it matters anyway), PBL is like marmalade, you either love it or hate it.

[senksiang90]

Well, dude, my bro's studying in MMMC now. If u want to, i cn giv u his contact easily for further inquiry. He's under JPA. Did twinning in India.

[tsar]

Thank you for your correction.

I just hope to get local universities :). Just one question though, have the applications for MMMC and IMU closed yet?

[Miracle_seed]

Thank you for your correction.

I just hope to get local universities :). Just one question though, have the applications for MMMC and IMU closed yet?The application for February/March intake has closed (In fact they have started classes :P), for August/September intake, perhaps it has not opened?

[jingguo]

I'm sorry to say this but your statement regarding 'PBL is used extensively in MOST UK med schools' is in fact, very misleading. There are only a few(namely Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and a couple new med schools like Peninsula and East Anglia)which take PBL as the main approach in their teaching, just like what IMU's doing. Many others only use PBL to supplement their lecture-based teaching.

In my opinion(not that it matters anyway), PBL is like marmalade, you either love it or hate it.

I do agree, in Medicine, PBL is still quite a new "thing" in medical education.. the more established universities still prefer old school teachings and tutorials where as PBLs in some sense gives more weightage on student independent learning.