Thursday, July 27, 2006

Portfolios and Journal Club

Today I wrote the draft of my research plan that is due tomorrow, and I just have to insert a figure and get my research preceptor to approve it. Once I do that, I will be submitting it to my portfolio. I haven't said much about the portfolios so far, but that's because they weren't even up yet until yesterday. The portfolios are how we get evaluated here, so they're definitely worth discussing though. They are completely electronic and accessible to us 24-7 through the CCLCM portal. Right now the only people who apparently have access to mine are my PA and me. Not that there's much in mine to see at the moment.

I spent some time looking through my portfolio, and now I understand why it took this much time for the computional staff to get them ready. There are several tabs in there. One is for me to upload things that aren't directly related to the curriculum but that I think are important to include. One is for all of the modules that I'll be doing for the rest of this year. So for example, there is one for this summer's module on molecular cell bio and basic science research, one for the cardiology block, and so on for all of the other organ blocks. There are several subfolders nested inside the current one for each of the assignments that I need to complete this summer, such as writing my research plan, presenting my journal club paper, and the PSS sessions. There is even a separate folder for that bioinformatics session we had this past Tuesday. I have no idea what I'm supposed to put into that one! And there is another folder for my powerpoint presentations. Apparently I am supposed to upload my powerpoints after I give my journal club presentation and my summer research presentation. There is a binder they gave us at orientation with info about the portfolio, and I suppose I ought to read that at some point in my ample spare time.

Since I know some of you upperclassmen are reading this blog, do you have any tips about how best to do the portfolio??? I have to confess that it's a bit intimidating to see dozens upon dozens of empty folders waiting to be filled!

Tomorrow our PSS is covering apoptosis, which I think is a particularly fascinating area. I'm looking forward to this one. We have journal club afterward, and this week we're going to be divided into two groups of 16 since there will be students presenting. Two students present in each group each week for eight weeks, so everyone goes once. I already told you that two people in our class came here to med school already having their PhDs, and several other people came already having MSs. The powers that be decided to have each group start out with one of the PhDs and one of the MSs presenting, since they've already had some experience with doing this. That seems to be a pretty sensible way to start things off.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just try to make Journal Club more of a discussion and less of a presentation.

And you really shouldn't be getting yourself worked up about the portfolio. The evidence will come. It's between you and your physician advisor to work out.

On a side note, good luck keeping this thing going during the school year.