Thursday 21 November 2013

REFLECTIONS ON BEING A STUDENT IN DENTAL MEDICINE




Dear students,
This is the first post to which I would like you to send comments.

Watch the videoclip above and then comment in what ways is your own schedule similar or different from the one presented, especially referring to the professional aspects.
Other reflections are of course desirable, since you should not repeat what has already been written. This means that you have to read what your colleagues have already commented.

VERY IMPORTANT!

Since this is your first post, I would like to offer some instructions which you should consider in all the comments you are going to make.

1. It is important for you to cooperate and communicate with your colleagues here, not just to answer my question, so it is higly recommended that you agree or disagree with your colleagues, ask them questions, make comments on their own comments.

2. Please be aware that you are working in the public space, consider issues of copyright (do not copy content from sites) and netiquette (be polite).

3. Do not write too long comments (50-80 words maximum). Pay special attention to spelling and language mistakes. Posts that contain too many errors will not be approved and will, therefore, not appear on the blog in the comments side. This means that you will have to re-write them.

4. In order to post you need to have a Google Account. I suggest you add a photo to your account profile so that I can associate your name with the photo.

After you have created your account, return to the address of this site. On the top right hand corner there is an Authentication button. Click on it, log in, and wait for the moderator (me) to accept the comment.

Success!

44 comments:

  1. This is the first comment - a trial

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  2. Hello! I have watched the video and would like to point out two major differences between their schedule and ours, and regarding their education plan. First of all, their schedule is much more structured! they have lectures in the morning, a lunch break, and labs in the afternoon. We, on the other hand have lectures and labs all day long with tons of breaks during the day, or non at all. Which sometimes leads to mental weariness. On the other hand our lectures and labs consist mainly (90%) of general subject, and in our second year never even seen the equipment they are already working with!

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    1. Hello! I agree with you, Julia because their schedule is more structured than ours and i would like better that one.We have no time for cardio or other training when we are from 10 a.m till 6 or 8 p.m and I can’t wait to get home and eat something and to go to bed which is the most unhealthy thing . We don’t have time for study lectures that we had that day so the most part remain for the test time.

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    2. Hi! First, I have to say that I agree with both Julia and Agnes. The worst part of being a dental student here in Romania is the fact that we go to University and study subjects that are not useful/not related to our field, which means that we are wasting our time. Our classes are very packed and when we get home, all we want is to eat and sleep (just like Agnes said)...I think we deserve a change in order to become professionals, but also we should try to incorporate their way of doing things! Secondly, our schedule is different because we live in a "different world" with a different mentality and background!

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    3. Hi Antonia! Can I ask you/and not only you but the others as well, why do you think you are made to study subjects you consider useless?

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    4. Hello! I think that we are made to study subjects that I or we think are useless because those in charge of the students and I don't mean teachers or the dean ( they can't change many things ), I mean the government is not analyzing the priorities and they also think that we are like sponges, absorbing every information, even if it is not related to our field. That is wrong because we are wasting our time trying to understand some mechanisms or whatever and in worse cases memorizing, and after 2 weeks we won't remember anything.Sometimes I feel that the students are silenced or that we live in the early 90's. We have so many opportunities and we don't know how to use them! For instance we study hygiene and only 2 or 3 lectures are related to medicine (not even dentistry)...the rest of the lectures are about meteorology, fountains, temperature, pollution, etc. The exam has 4 credits, which is a lot. It has more credits than the genetics we study. It is absurd! I guess my colleagues can relate to what I said and I don't want to be misunderstood or I don't want people to think that I am ignorant. If I am interested in a particular subject which is not related to dentistry I will read about it. These subjects shouldn't be compulsory! Our educational system is not functioning well and I don't know how long it will take until people will realize that we need a change, or at least a little enlightenment! ( Sorry for the long post...many things are left unsaid)

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    5. I watched this video too and I have to say that I agree with my colleagues, because they are right. The students from Minnesota have a really structured schedule, they use many tools, which we didn't see here, etc. so we have some disadvantage. In the same time I'd like to say that many things depend on us, because we have free time and we choose how to use it. For example I realized that I forgot a lot of English, because I didn't practice. The best solution is if I sit down and learn. This is right for the other subjects. If I want to know more, there are many books and sites, where I can improve my knowledge. It would be easier if we had more interesting subjects, but we have to find the positive sides of our university and schedule even though it is hard. Sometimes I feel, that I'm too tired to learn or I'm not interested in some lectures, but I can't change this system, I can change only my point of view.

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    6. I agree with Antonia ! besides that , sometimes our professors don't make the difference between general medicine and dental medicine and enter our classroom and tell us about things we will do as future doctors ( i don't know for example EKG , genetic schemes etc) , things that we will never even experiment to do.
      Another aspect that i don't like (especially this year) is that we don't make anything practical. We must wear our lab coats (nu imi amintesc cum se spune 'halate') because without them we can't enter in the lab but all we do is write what the teacher says... nothing more.

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    7. Hello. I can totally agree with the posts of above, especially I would like to mention my accordance related to Antonia's comment. As I see it, it's a general problem in our country that the education isn't well structured, we don't have toughtful schedules, and this year it's about over packed weeks with many lessons. When I watched this video, of course I searched for the differences, because I find aggravating that we haven't got the opportunity to develop our practical knowdlege, or our manual skills, however it would be very useful and recommended from the start. Instead of this we have to study useless subjects, just like Antonia said.

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    8. So Emilia, key-factors are: autonomy (self-study) and self-improvement. Good points!

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    9. Cristina, yes, you use the word "coat". When you write here, you have to address the person with whom you agree or disagree. For example you could have written: Antonia, you are right about ........... Can you try to do this in the future? Because we are trying to keep a conversation going, not just answering my original questions. OK?

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    10. ok , I will try to do that in the future :)

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    11. I agree with the previous comments because we really have an unstructured schedule. I want to underline one thing, because it is another disadvantage of our university. I don’t like that we haven’t got separate books and we have to study from general medicine’s books. It is hard to decide what information you need and what is less important.

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  3. I've watched the video as well, and I agree with Júlia, however I found a few more differences. Firstly they are practicing on mannequins, but we, as far as I know don't have any manneguins to practice on. Also we start treating patients from the third year, not from the second year.
    Apart from these differences I've noticed a similarity too, because they are practicing on each other too, just like we will, starting from the second semester of the secod year.

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    1. Dear Evelyn,
      As you could see, when you are logged in, you can reply directly to whoever you want. So, instead of writing a comment, you could have eeplied to Julia about what you agree with her. So next time you comment, you can do so.

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    2. Ok, I'll keep that in mind.

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  4. The college in Minnesota has more funds than us if they can aford manechins and others hi-tech gadgets for students. I wonder when we will reach that level!?. If I am not mistaken we will start directly on human beings the next year, the third year. Anoter thing their schedule is more strategicaly though for both teachers and students. They have just one break insted of two or three per day like we have.

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  5. First I like to point that me and that boy have two things in common. We are both gym lovers and dental students :) . He has a more organized life than the students from our university. We have to go to lectures then labs then lectures again and we are not doing the advanced things that he is doing...yet. I hope that one day I will have the same experience that he is having at school because it looks that it is helping him learn more than the sistem in our school is helping us.

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    1. I agree with you, I think we should be doing more advanced practical work than so many lectures. Also the American way is proven to be the best way so the fact that it is different from our schedule it isn't surprising.

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  6. Hi, Evelyn, I have to contradict you regarding the mannequins, we will practice on mannequins just like the ones from University of Minnesota in the third year, so we can say that from this point of view we are one of the luckiest students in Romania, because our University has modern equipment. It is true that our educational system is a little bit opposed to the educational systems from another countries, but we have many opportunities in order to progress and as Emilia has already said, self-study and self-improvement are very important.

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  7. I agree with my colleagues, because their program is better structured than ours . We study more subjects related to general medicine than to dental medicine which is a waste of time as we chose dentistry . Regarding our program , we don't have time to go to the gym because so many times we have classes all day and when we go home we are tired . Unfortunately we can't do anything regarding the program , just to organise better our spare time and divide it in a way that we can have time for us as well.

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    1. I agree with you,Andrea!Their program is well-thought-out! We have days when our "lunch" is on our way to another lecture and as you said we don't have time to go to the gym and because we are so tired at the end of the week we don't even feel like going out and have fun.I also think they do more practical work than us and because of that they are more sure of their work .

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  8. I also have to agree wtih my colleagues. The main differnece between the two universities is that, we don't have as much practice as they have in the USA. I think in dental medicine practicing is the most important thing. Also, they have more instuments and equipment in their labs. In conclusion, as I see it we have to up to date with developments and try to do much more practice at university.

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  9. Try to be careful at typos! (differnece)
    Also please correct: "we have to up to date with developments"

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  10. This is going to sound like I'm just pileing on but it doesn't change the fact that it's true(atleast it has been so far) , there is a much bigger emphasis on theoretical study as opposed to practical works and simulations. I'm hoping that this will change in later years of study , seeing as our college is more than plentifully supplied with plenty of materials like the aformentioned manequins that Evelyn and Gabriela where talking about.

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    1. What do you mean by "pileing on"? (pile + ing = piling)

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  11. I really don't know what to say, something that hasn't been said already. I wish that our schedule to be more like those from University of Minnesota. I can't even remember the last time I served breakfast at 8 a.m or eating three times a day (breackfast , lunch and dinner). Being a student to UMF Tg. Mures, you only have time for one meal per day and the only "cardio" we get is when we "run" from lecture to lecture, which can be in different places like UMF, Hospital, Petru Maior and so on.
    For example, Wednesday: 8-10- lecture
    10-12- pause
    12-14- lp
    14-16- lecture
    16-18- lp
    18-20- lecture
    After one day like this my only wish is to sleep! :)

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    1. I have to agree with you , I would also like to have a schedule like those from the university of Minnesota because I believe that it's more practical way to study , to have a healthy life (time to eat properly) to revise and in my case time to go to the gym.I also heard that from the 3rd year our schedule would be more relaxed and I believe that then we will have more time to focus on what we love to study like ortodontics or BMF.

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  12. I can tell that we have less practice that they have at Minnesota. I would like to practice more what we learn. There are days when the program is very heavy but there are other days with less classes. Anyway I think it is exhausting.

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    1. Natalia, we do not say: "less classes" but...?

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    2. We can say “fewer”.

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    3. We HAVE TO SAY "fewer" (for countable nouns: fewer friends, fewer hours) and never "less" (less is for uncountable nouns: less time, less space, etc)

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  13. Hi everyone! While reading these comments, I realized that the most of the opinions are similar to mine. First of all, I would like to highlight (according to my colleagues) that our schedule is more busy, even if sometimes we are wasting a lot of time with two to four our breaks between classes. I think in this short film we are facing a perfect student life. They learn better with modern equipment and more advanced technology and a very important thing is that they have more practical classes then us. Self-study and self-improvement? I agree with Emily, but I consider that besides learning we also should make free time for ourself. We should go out jogging or even a short walk would be healthy for us.

    Another point is that Antonia said we must learn many useless things. I partly disagree with her, because we will end up being doctors who have a more broad understanding of our organism.

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    1. Zsuzsi, please find the right version for the following (comparison of adjectives):
      - our schedule is more busy
      - a more broad understanding of our organism.

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    2. - our schedule is busier
      - a broader understanding of our organism

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    3. That is right! Please do not forget that all short adjectives use this type of comparison (-er, est), unlike the plurisyllabic ones).

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  14. First of all, their schedule is much more structured!We study more subjects related to general medicine than to dental medicine which is a waste of time...Our educational system is not functioning well and I don't know how long it will take until people will realize that we need a change. Sometimes I feel that I'm too tired to learn or go to the gym because so many times we have classes all day.

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  15. Hi! I have watched the video and I would like to say that are some big differences between American and Romanian medical school. First of all, here in Romanian we study a lot of subjects, especially in the first two years referring to general medicine and just one or two referring to dentistry. In two years practically we are just learning the alphabet of dentistry which is a big waste of time, we don t practice on mannequins like Americans, in two years we never even seen the equipment they are already working with. Also their schedule is much more structured. They have lectures in the morning, a lunch break, and labs in the afternoon. On the other hand we have lectures and labs all day long , sometimes from 8am to 8pm without break and that leads to mental weariness.

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    1. Madalina, you should rephrase: we never even seen the equipment....

      So sorry about your extremely busy schedule.

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    2. We have never seen the equipment
      And that affects our free time. We don’t have enough time to do everything we want, going to gym or partys. In conclusion, I would like to have more lectures focused on dentistry and more practical work because that is the most important aspect on our professional development.

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    3. Madalina, can you spell again the noun "party" in the plural?

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    4. Yes, I have seen the mistake...parties, not partys.

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  16. Like Julia said,we are losing our time learning stupid things that wil not help us in the future and our schedule is very busy. When we finished classes,we only want to eat and rest. For example,I do big efforts to have a time when I go to the gym,because due to this stupid schedule with lots of test papers one after other one I don't have enough time. I think that it should be different,and I also think that we need to practice,to learn how to work with people.

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  17. I have nothing to add to what my colleagues said. I agree with them.

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