UoM Chancellor's Scholar's program Vs Monash MBBS

[samad]

Still can't decide b/w Unimelb guaranteed pathway to MD and Monash MBBS. I know that Monash is a shorter degree and is best if you want to specialise at a younger age, but Melbourne gives you a larger knowledge base and greater research opportunities down the track, and it arguably has better clinical schools.

I know this thread really concerns a small demographic and apologize if it seems really exclusive, but any advice or insight before change of preference close on 21/12/11 would be really helpful!

[thushan]

Hmm, after appraising all the options and pros and cons, I've decided on Monash.

Pros about Monash:
- Shorter degree (5-6 years)
- More exposure to clinical setting (3 clinical years, but at years 1 and 2 you have placements as well) => great opportunities for personal development too
- From samad's perspective, the scholarship is guaranteed to cover the costs of med school and pay your allowance of $6000 pa. Med school is expensive. Melb doesn't have this - scholarship covers only undergraduate.
- (this was the clincher for me) Family setting: You're with the same group of people for five years in an environment where competition is discouraged. You're learning together to become good doctors, rather than getting marks. You're helping each other, suffering with each other. At Melbourne with the undergrad degree: Science - different ppl do different subjects, fragmented cohort. Biomedicine - assuming most ppl want to do graduate entry medicine, competition may be cut-throat at worst.

Pros about Melbourne:
- Broader knowledge base, yes.
- Best medical school in southern hemisphere (but this is based on postgraduate stuff and research); Monash also has a brilliant reputation as a research university, and is rising up the ranks-fast. Only reason it is not up there with Melbourne is because Monash is a new university (only founded 50 years ago to melbourne's 150) and so it did not have much time to establish itself. (Hearsay) It is also ranked the best NEW university in Australia (or was it in Southern Hemisphere? I don't remember).
- Location!! Takes me 1 hour to get to Melbourne, 2 to Monash (I'd be moving house should I get into monash)
- Chance to do breadth, so study things you are interested in without worrying about grades.

[Russ]

As far as I'm concerned it depends on whether you want to do a medical degree straight away or you're looking to experience a variety of pathways before starting medicine. Those are really the two key determinants. I dislike the undergraduate pathway of medicine on the grounds that it typically draws high school students into a career that they'll probably spend the rest of their lives in, with no experience of what it's like or whether they truly want it. Melbourne probably has better clinical schools but I don't think that's that big a deal. Melbourne is a better medical program than Monash, but again probably not that big a deal.

If you have a gut feeling about one, go with that one. If not, UoM will give you time to change your mind and enjoy yourself for 3 years, which is particularly valuable, trust me.

- (this was the clincher for me) Family setting: You're with the same group of people for five years in an environment where competition is discouraged. You're learning together to become good doctors, rather than getting marks. You're helping each other, suffering with each other. At Melbourne with the undergrad degree: Science - different ppl do different subjects, fragmented cohort. Biomedicine - assuming most ppl want to do graduate entry medicine, competition may be cut-throat at worst.

You'll get 7 years of a family environment in Biomed -> MD, I've never seen any of this cut throat competition in my last 3 years here. I have heard plenty of stories out of the monash MBBS of competition there though, I don't think it's the perfect environment you envision.

[dc302]

I wouldn't know for sure but I don't think you can have a very 'family' environment in the last 3 years of med school where you'll be doing clinicals almost all the time (at different hospitals).

Also, if I got 99.90+ I would definitely go to melbourne.

[thushan]

No cut-throat competition? That's good to hear.
You've heard about cut-throats at Monash? What have you heard?

[samad]

There are, however, a few new dimensions to the debate: 
1:Clinical schools
Melbourne university:
- Clinical schools are great for specialization: Western Health (peadiatrics), Royal Children's, Austin, St Vincent's, The Women's, Royal Melbourne Hospital. You get that big hospital feel and big hospital experience, at very great locations vs Dandenong, Casey, Box Hill and Monash Med Centre at Monash
Monash University:
- The more "out there" hospitals really foster your independence. You face limitations of resources and less support as there are less people (apparently, after talking to my career's advisor), so you get more time developing your clinical skills. This can be compared with Inner city hospitals where there are so many students that you go on a roster even when on a full time clinical rotation. (less time with patients)

2: Quality of medical teaching
Melbourne:
-From what I've heard, some of the best anatomy professors in australia
-Course is not fragmented and is highly collaborative for the MD 4 year component, although it is quite fragmented and less "family-like" for bachelor years
Monash:
-Collaborative throughout: Build great friendships
- Not too sure about their professors, as I haven't heard too many testimonials (one guy I know said their lectures are boring?? That's only one guy)

3: Study/Work/life balance
Bachelors degree at UoM gives you more chance to tutor/ work part time/ pursue extra-curricular interests
At monash, I have heard of people who have attempted to do things like tutoring before, but it ends up being too much work alongside an intense med course
This might concern you Thushan if you are interested in tutoring

Does any of this make it any easier? Probably not,  but these are just some of the things i was considering. Your thoughts would be much appreciated

[Russ]

There are, however, a few new dimensions to the debate: 
1:Clinical schools

You will have literally years of high pressure patient care in your PGYs, why so keen to jump in the deep end? But at the end of the day, your clinical schools aren't going to be a huge difference between unis.

2: Quality of medical teaching
Melbourne:
-From what I've heard, some of the best anatomy professors in australia
-Course is not fragmented and is highly collaborative for the MD 4 year component, although it is quite fragmented and less "family-like" for bachelor years
Monash:
-Collaborative throughout: Build great friendships
- Not too sure about their professors, as I haven't heard too many testimonials (one guy I know said their lectures are boring?? That's only one guy)

Lectures at Melbourne are boring as well (making bilirubin interesting is probably impossible). Also, there's definitely a great familial vibe at Melbourne (in biomed at least). It's actually one of the strengths of the biomed program, it was the focus of our presentation today.

Agree very strongly on three, the undergrad years to enjoy yourself and understand yourself are very valuable

No cut-throat competition? That's good to hear.
You've heard about cut-throats at Monash? What have you heard?

Talk to shinny, not me on this one.

[paulsterio]

Don't you have to maintain H2A averages in the Undergraduate degree in order to get the guaranteed entry into MD?
If so, even if I had 99.95/99.90, which I don't, I still wouldn't really go with the Melbourne option because I have no biology experience and really don't know if I'll be able to crack H2A averages in a subject I've really never done before, I'd probably be more confident in Maths/Computer Science but not Biology/Chemistry subjects


I've also heard there's no competition at Monash because the first two years are Pass/Fail only, you don't get the whole H1, H2A...etc. thing so there's less competition between students which I think is good, also there's the Med Bubble, so like all of you guys are close and you get MEDCAMP IN FEB! I'M LIKE EXCITED FOR THIS ALREADY EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT IN YET! HELL YEAHH!

[Russ]

Don't you have to maintain H2A averages in the Undergraduate degree in order to get the guaranteed entry into MD?
If so, even if I had 99.95/99.90, which I don't, I still wouldn't really go with the Melbourne option because I have no biology experience and really don't know if I'll be able to crack H2A averages in a subject I've really never done before, I'd probably be more confident in Maths/Computer Science but not Biology/Chemistry subjects

No you don't / I did it and it was fine.

Med camp is awesome though, I'm going to ours in Feb

[dc302]

^ yeah about the clinical schools, no matter how 'bad' or 'not as good as other hospitals' you think one is, it is still going to be plenty good enough for the likes of a med student who hasn't even graduated. That's just how I feel though.

[shinny]

You'll get 7 years of a family environment in Biomed -> MD, I've never seen any of this cut throat competition in my last 3 years here. I have heard plenty of stories out of the monash MBBS of competition there though, I don't think it's the perfect environment you envision.

That's strange, I hear (and have experienced on my side) the reverse. Our year level has a Facebook group set up where people have posted all their notes and such online. One guy has posted about 10 self-written lectures on basically every topic we had to learn this year, with each topic spanning about 300 Powerpoint slides. There's also a sense of community between the levels, with every year level now immediately doing exam write-ups immediately after every exam we have, so that future year levels have past-exams to work with (since the faculty stopped providing these to us). With this year's exam, within 2 days, we managed to remember and write down 99 out of 100 of the MCQs that were on our exam and that file has now been uploaded to the Med Society's past-exam database.

I wouldn't know for sure but I don't think you can have a very 'family' environment in the last 3 years of med school where you'll be doing clinicals almost all the time (at different hospitals).

Sure you can. After spending two years with the same people every day for many hours, they end up pretty much becoming your closest friends. So my group from 1st and 2nd year still catch up very regularly - at least once a fortnight if not more. The people from within your hospital end up becoming very close too. I initially was dreading my hospital placement this year since I didn't really know anyone, but we eventually grew really close and towards the end of the year and we even had nights where the entire group of us from the hospital would just head out and have a drink together.

There are, however, a few new dimensions to the debate: 
1:Clinical schools
Melbourne university:
- Clinical schools are great for specialization: Western Health (peadiatrics), Royal Children's, Austin, St Vincent's, The Women's, Royal Melbourne Hospital. You get that big hospital feel and big hospital experience, at very great locations vs Dandenong, Casey, Box Hill and Monash Med Centre at Monash
Monash University:
- The more "out there" hospitals really foster your independence. You face limitations of resources and less support as there are less people (apparently, after talking to my career's advisor), so you get more time developing your clinical skills. This can be compared with Inner city hospitals where there are so many students that you go on a roster even when on a full time clinical rotation. (less time with patients)

My experience is that smaller hospitals/clinics are MUCH better for learning. I was at Box Hill and Maroondah Hospital this year and frankly Box Hill wasn't very good. Everyone was just too busy to bother letting you do anything and I'm sure this effect will get multiplied many times over in the inner city hospitals. This experience was mirrored by my friends at The Alfred. On the other hand, Maroondah was brilliant. I could pretty much walk on any ward, just ask the nurse in charge for a good patient to talk to and I'd just jump right in. Procedures were easy to get as well since the doctors had time to supervise you and were happy to do so - especially since they were less stressed. Having experienced this, next year I've even purposely chosen to go to a small GP clinic instead of those massive super clinics since I've realised it's actually a far better learning environment. Apparently for the last few years, the top performing students in 3rd year have been from Casey Hospital which is absolutely tiny. But yes, inner city hospitals are better for establishing connections for specialising and such. While this can be done while still in Med school, you've still got time during your internship and residency years so it's not the end of the world if you don't go. The connections you have at any hospital are still valuable regardless as well.

There are, however, a few new dimensions to the debate: 
1:Clinical schools
Melbourne university:
- Clinical schools are great for specialization: Western Health (peadiatrics), Royal Children's, Austin, St Vincent's, The Women's, Royal Melbourne Hospital. You get that big hospital feel and big hospital experience, at very great locations vs Dandenong, Casey, Box Hill and Monash Med Centre at Monash
Monash University:
- The more "out there" hospitals really foster your independence. You face limitations of resources and less support as there are less people (apparently, after talking to my career's advisor), so you get more time developing your clinical skills. This can be compared with Inner city hospitals where there are so many students that you go on a roster even when on a full time clinical rotation. (less time with patients)

2: Quality of medical teaching
Melbourne:
-From what I've heard, some of the best anatomy professors in australia
-Course is not fragmented and is highly collaborative for the MD 4 year component, although it is quite fragmented and less "family-like" for bachelor years
Monash:
-Collaborative throughout: Build great friendships
- Not too sure about their professors, as I haven't heard too many testimonials (one guy I know said their lectures are boring?? That's only one guy)

The majority of Medicine is self-taught, so I wouldn't stress about the quality of lectures too much.

^ yeah about the clinical schools, no matter how 'bad' or 'not as good as other hospitals' you think one is, it is still going to be plenty good enough for the likes of a med student who hasn't even graduated. That's just how I feel though.

Yeh, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter too much where you go. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, and it's just up to you to compensate for them. Big hospitals tend to organise heaps of lectures from their big shot doctors, but don't offer much in the way of actual clinical engagement. Small hospitals are the reverse - you're pretty much just thrown in the deep end and it's up to you to roam the wards and do whatever you wish. You won't get as many lectures, but the free time allows you to learn in a more clinical manner.

[dc302]

^ If you put it that way, the same can be said about 'family environment' with any degree, even science. You can also get close to people in different subjects. I think the original point was that in monash or melbourne biomed, you can stay together for longer. Not saying anything about maintaining close ties with friends, because that happens all the time everywhere.

[abeybaby]

Id seriously go for melbourne.. my brother and his friend, who are both 5th year MBBS at melbourne continuously complain that the monash kids dont know what theyre talking about. you can obviously expect some prejudice from them, but melbourne is no. 1 for a reason...

[shinny]

^ If you put it that way, the same can be said about 'family environment' with any degree, even science. You can also get close to people in different subjects. I think the original point was that in monash or melbourne biomed, you can stay together for longer. Not saying anything about maintaining close ties with friends, because that happens all the time everywhere.

Ah right, that's what you meant. Well if you meant as a whole cohort collective, then definitely it exists still. Lecture-wide mexican waves were a common feature of 1st and 2nd year, together with large gatherings of us waiting on the Central lawns for lectures and such. Just overall I think the undergrad experience is definitely a benefit socially. 1st and 2nd year were great fun overall. My brother does graduate Medicine at UQ and he says the people there are really quite anti-social (not sure if due to graduate or due to UQ >_>).

Id seriously go for melbourne.. my brother and his friend, who are both 5th year MBBS at melbourne continuously complain that the monash kids dont know what theyre talking about. you can obviously expect some prejudice from them, but melbourne is no. 1 for a reason...

If you ask us about anything science-related, sure, we probably won't know what we're on about. Monash is meant to be a clinical course, not a science-based one. If you're referring to the clinical side of things and those Monash kids still don't know what they're talking about, then it's their fault really - not the uni's. Clinical medicine is meant to be largely self-taught.

Ultimately, I think the decision lies in your priorities. Melbourne is better for establishing connections, research and academic things (and location I guess). On the other hand, Monash will be a faster course, clinically-focused and I can guarantee will have a far more enjoyable social component to it.

[Russ]

You can't guarantee that :foldsarms:

That's strange, I hear (and have experienced on my side) the reverse.

Yeah it could just be rumour from both sides, tbf. I shouldn't have corrected the ones about Melbourne and then gone with the ones about Monash since I haven't been there.

not sure if due to graduate or due to UQ >_>

Almost certainly due to UQ, their selection process gets criticized a fair bit.