(electronic hip hop music)
- Hi, my name's Tom,
and I'm a fourth year medical student
at the University of Queensland.
And welcome to the Great Court.
The Great Court is the spiritual and traditional heart
of the University of Queensland,
and as you can see,
it is a really great place to be.
Surrounded by the beautiful sandstone,
cloisters and facade of the original foundation buildings
of the university
is such a great place to
really connect with the university.
So many memories and
great times I had in the Great Court here.
(electronic hip hop music)
My journey into medicine started
when I was in grade 10 in high school.
I had a bit of a mindset shift
and knew that I wanted to do something
where I was working with people
and making a real difference.
So with the subject that I was studying,
I decided that medicine was for me.
Unfortunately I was unsuccessful
in gaining entry to medical school
as a direct applicant from high school.
So I enrolled in a Bachelor of Science
at the University of Queensland,
and sat the GAMSAT exam.
And I was very fortunate enough
to perform quite well on that exam,
and made my way as a post-graduate student
into the Doctor of Medicine at UQ.
I'm not in my final year of the program,
and I've had such an amazing time here.
Some of the reasons
why I chose the University of Queensland
where for its reputation in Australia,
but also globally as well.
It's one of the universities that has had a medical school
for almost its entire inception.
And the tradition and the way of teaching medicine
has really strong roots in tradition,
but is also in the forefront of innovation,
which is a really great mix as a medical student.
Public transport in Brisbane's really great as well.
The hospitals as well as all the major universities
are all connected
by really, really good busway infrastructure,
which means that
you can be at the PA hospital seeing patients,
and 10 minutes later,
a short bus ride,
you can be back on the main UQ campus
to meet up with friends,
grab a movie,
or play some sport with your mates as well.
(electronic dance music)
Welcome to the Princess Alexandria Hospital.
PA Hospital is the second-largest hospital in Queensland,
and the second-largest clinical school
for the University of Queensland medical program.
As a final year student here at PA Hospital,
I'm here Monday to Friday,
and I usually start my day at about 7:30 a.m.,
just in time for morning ward round.
The role of a medical student in your final year
is all about getting hands on
and practicing your clinical skills.
That means talking to patients,
seeing patients in your own clinic rooms,
and following your senior doctors
and learning the skills necessary to be a junior doctor.
(electronic dance music)
This is the Translational Research Institute,
or the TRI for short.
And all years of the medical program
are actually taught from this location.
Depending on where you're allocated in your first year,
you can either be here at the TRI,
the Royal Brisbane Clinical School across the river,
or at the Mater Clinical School
at the Mater Hospital as well.
This facility is such an amazing blend
of teaching, research, and clinical application as well.
It's so close to the hospital,
just 50 meters or so away.
The medical program at UQ is split into two phases.
Phase one, which is the pre-clinical years,
where you're mostly experiencing class types
such as lectures, tutorials, and workshops
on basic clinical knowledge, clinical skills,
and
clinical procedures as well.
And then there's phase two,
which is the clinical years.
This is where you're actually spending all of your time
in either a hospital or a primary care clinical environment.
And you'll be actually with practicing doctors,
seeing real patients,
and getting to apply the knowledge you've learnt
from phase one of the medical program
and develop your skills and knowledge in that respect.
The other really great thing is that
at the TRI building here,
we have access to the Integrated Pathology Learning Center,
which allows us to have firsthand access to
real pathological specimens,
which sounds gross but it's really cool,
and it's a great way to a
access
what we're seeing,
but at a more microscopic and histological level.
So it's kind of cool to be able to correlate the pathology
that you see in a glass bottle,
maybe a heart that has suffered a heart attack
from a real patient some years ago,
and actually see that same case
or a similar case in the hospital
and be able to compare and contrast
the disease process, the pathology,
and then think about ways that we can prevent
those sorts of diseases and those disease processes
from happening in patients that we see and that we treat.
(electronic dance music)
The Global Change Institute is one of those buildings
that's just really cool.
It's one of the only buildings on campus
that is 100% energy sustainable.
That is, it captures and creates
all of its own water and energy,
and also disposes and treats its own waste as well.
It's also a really cool place
to hang out, study, and chill with your mates.
There's a beautiful tranquil waterfall in the background,
and a nice living green wall,
and it's a great backdrop to some down time
or just to study.
(electronic dance music)
One of the most memorable experiences
that I've had in medical school
actually happened earlier this year.
I was in my intensive care unit rotation
at the PA Hospital here in Brisbane,
and I was actually called upon for the very first time
to perform CPR,
cardiopulmonary resuscitation,
on an elderly gentleman who was having a cardiac arrest.
Of course, this is a skill that we practice in simulation
and on mannequins many times as junior medical students,
but actually performing that skill
and sort of that activity
on a real life patient,
who, you know, condition was in the brink of life and death,
was really a touching moment.
Unfortunately, this patient succumbed to his illness,
and we weren't able to revive him.
But I was really, you know, taken aback
and
really, you know,
in awe of the work
of the medical and nursing and allied health staff
who were involved in that
that code, as we call it in the hospital wards.
And despite the patient not making it through the other end,
I was really happy and really humbled by the intense effort
of all those involved to try and revive this gentleman.
And it's really sort of humbling to know
that despite all of the advances in modern medicine
that we have achieved
over the last 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 years,
that sometimes life will just take its natural course
and there's nothing that we as doctors or as humans
can do to prevent that.
So, yeah, thinking and reflecting on
situations of life and death
is really, really interesting
as a final year medical student.
And this experience has definitely given me
really strong grounding and
a really sort of humbling view of life and death.
(mellow electronic music)
There's more to medical school
than just lectures, studying, and tutorials,
and being at the hospital the whole time.
Fortunately for me, in my four years at medical school,
I've been involved in the UQ Medical Student Society.
And to be honest, this has just made medical school
such an amazing and fun experience.
The UQMS, as it's more affectionately known as,
are responsible for organizing academic, social,
and sporting events for medical students
all across Brisbane,
regardless of which hospital you're at.
We have welcome parties,
we have social events for each year level,
and for integrating year levels.
We have a huge sports day at the start of every year,
where we all have a lot of fun down at a local park.
We dress up in scrubs,
and we get up to a little bit of mischief as well.
The other great part about the UQMS
is the support that they provide for students
and the advocacy that they provide
for the medical faculty itself
so that as students in our medical program
is the best that it can be,
and it's constantly being improved.
(mellow electronic music)
So if you enjoyed this video,
and would like to hear more about
the top medical schools across Australia and New Zealand
and all over the world,
don't forget to like and subscribe,
and if you have other questions,
please get in touch with us and ask away.