Student BMJ Review: September 2007 issue

Although the Student BMJ is well known to the majority of medical students in the UK I must confess that I haven’t looked at a whole issue for at least a couple of years. I look at articles from the student BMJ mainly when they are brought to my attention by staff or students of the School and after reviewing the September issue I think I am probably missing out.

I reviewed the September issue online, I am familiar with the ordinary BMJ and view that online and therefore it was interesting to compare the two. The layout is very similar, the most notable difference being the section on careers in the student BMJ and a bigger education section but no research papers. The September issue was of particular interest to me because the cover proclaimed the title ‘The Ideal Medic’.

I read with interest the linked articles of the editor’s choice on societal and personal choices and the editorial on ‘To be a Medical Student Today, What does it Take?’ together with the letter from the Nottingham medical student entitled ‘That Infamous Interview Question, Why do you want to be a Doctor?’. I think these are really topical issues for students, however, I would question whether there is an ideal doctor or an ideal medical student and I would certainly dispute the fact that Heads of Schools debate the characteristics of the ideal medical student. For me there isn’t one good doctor but about four important aspects that I am looking for in someone coming into medical school. These are:

• A capacity for hard work
• A commitment to the care of others
• An ability to work as part of a team
• An ability to retain a sense of humour at all times (particularly in view of the recent MTAS debacle)

The section on widening participation was a good in depth article and was thoughtful rather then being over emotional. It was useful to bring in the American experience but I would have recommended also looking at South Africa and Australasia. Also of interest was the article on gender and choosing a speciality. I think it would have been interesting if the student BMJ also had a few paragraphs written by a consultant female surgeon and a consultant male obstetrician and gynaecologist for their views on the issues that were brought up. I like the new letters section which allows students to contribute and comment on recent articles. The section in Life on head-to-head was also very interesting but I see that the article was first published in the BMJ in August and I wonder whether some of the head-to-head material has come from students themselves because this would be of real interest.

I wonder whether there could be a section on research within the student BMJ? This could be used for students to publicise their work in intercalated years or in SSCs and I think would be a very worthwhile venture. I also think that the student BMJ should also give some thought providing a platform for e-debating and hosting podcasts. This would be particularly suitable for the People section and although reading about someone’s life is interesting, getting them to tell you about it is even more fascinating. I read the I Spy section with interest.

Overall the student BMJ had a familiar and comfortable feel about it. I wondered whether it should be more challenging and also utilise newer technologies inviting students to form global learning groups, podcasts as I mentioned before or getting students to submit Utube like videos on particular medical topics. It would be nice to see the student BMJ leading the way in this new form of learning particularly as Marc Prensky has said that the ‘now’ generation are digital natives as opposed to people like me who he labels digital immigrants.

   

 Printable version    Download    E-mail this to a friend    Respond to this article